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Mulder’s fish gobble their food with vacant eyes. Scully envies their easy satisfaction. On a whim she turns on the CD player and presses play, in an impulsive need to try and find Mulder through his music collection. She drops the furniture polish in surprise as the first song starts and sinks into the couch. Skinner, lured out of the kitchen, removes his soap-laden rubber gloves.
‘What’s this?’
‘All Things Must Pass album,’ Scully says tightly, stacking papers on his desk for sorting. ‘It’s in the CD player.’
Scully can no longer see the desk clearly when My Sweet Lord plays. It happens this way: she might be at the store or driving home, and in a blink her vision has blurred with the onset of sudden tears as she remembers the finality of the situation. Mulder has died. The couch dips as Skinner sits beside her.
‘You ok?’
She nods. ‘I didn’t even know he liked George Harrison. How did it not come up?’
‘It doesn’t mean anything, Scully. You can never know everything about another person.’
‘In seven years, though? All those road trips?’ She lays her head against the back of the couch and gazes at the ceiling, finding its familiar patterns. She’ll never know which was his favourite song, or what he thought of George’s songwriting compared to John Lennon’s.
‘I think it’s good. You’re still learning about him. He’s still got things to show you.’
Scully shakes her head slowly with pursed lips. ‘No,’ she croaks.
They are there to get his affairs in order, as the saying goes. They piece together the fragments of his life; Scully recognises a portrait of loyalty, ambition, and love. For someone who was impossible to grasp for the first few years, flitting about like a shadow, he had collected a surprising streak of sentimentality. She surmises a missing sister will do this to a person. Every birthday card hiding his Dad’s scrawl, each neat instruction on how to reheat leftovers from his mother’s visits, it’s all an attempt to prove their existence: that the Mulders were here. She thought she had understood after Melissa had died, but it pales in comparison to this. There’s no way she can part with anything here. It will all have to remain forever and ever in loving tribute to the man to whom she never uttered those three words. She had ignored every lesson that life had taught her, and mistakenly believed there would be more time. The sheer depth of her grief cracks open, and she swallows bile as the room starts to spin.
‘Scully?’
‘I’m ok. It’s morning sickness,’ she lies, closing her eyes.
‘Still?’
‘It’s not uncommon in the second trimester.’ So much time has already passed. He will never know about the picture with the tiny, grainy head she’s stuck on her fridge.
They remain on the couch listening to the album amongst the pockets of neatness juxtaposed with chaos and clutter in Mulder’s living room. It feels transient; she’s in purgatory. It’s suddenly too much when she hears the opening chords to All Things Must Pass. A sob whines from her throat, and she covers her eyes with her hand, pushing her anger into her temples. Skinner immediately grips her elbow, and she’s grateful for his force.
‘Come on, let’s go.’
‘No, I can’t,’ she hiccups, wanting to protect her mourning from his observation. She longs to wallow in grief’s intimacy, but she can only do that alone. ‘I can’t leave him here.’
‘He’s not here, Dana. And I’m not going to leave you.’ Skinner stands and gathers their coats. ‘Come on, please. I’ll get us milkshakes on the way back.’
Weirdly enough, a milkshake sounds divine. Scully can already taste it: sticky, cold, insulating her with sweetness and sugar. Resistance as she sucks the ice cream through the straw followed by the satisfaction when it pools on her tongue.
‘You promise?’
‘I’ll even order a cherry on top.’ He winks. He is full of crinkly kindness. She takes his outstretched hand and he pulls her up quickly, the momentum making her giggle. He catches her for a hug.
‘We’ll come back,’ Skinner promises. His chin bumps the top of her head as he speaks. ‘We’ll celebrate the new things, and we’ll sort through the old. We’ll do it together.’
‘And maybe a milkshake after?’ She asks, knowing she’s being infantile.
‘Every time, Scully.’ Oxytocin feels like a cool breeze, and she hides her face against his shoulder. Her thoughts slow, and she finds herself quite exhausted. She wants to drink her milkshake at home, under the warmth of her comforter. Skinner’s arms are strong around her, keeping her upright in more ways than one.