#Per Manum | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sixhours · 5 days

Text

Remnants

Everything that’s left of her broken dreams is standing at the counter, returning her smile.

Rated: PG Length: 1k

Notes: Post-episode for Per Manum

Originally posted on AO3 1/6/2016

~*~

The apartment is shrouded in gray when she returns, the last of her hopes printed on an appointment summary in her coat pocket. Upon seeing her face, he wishes he’d thought to turn on a light, so she wouldn’t have to come home to more darkness, his slumbering form on the couch not enough to fill this newfound emptiness.

“It didn’t take, did it?”

Disappointment shines in her eyes. Forehead to forehead, he waits until her breathing is calm to offer something more substantial than a promise, but the warmth of her skin under his fingers disarms him, gives him pause.

His hands cradle her face as their lips touch for only the second time, her arms wind around his neck like an anchor, pulling him down into her sorrowful sea.

~*~

Dr. Parenti’s delivery was kind, but she felt the news like a gunshot. It’s worse than Emily, this intangible loss. Failure hasn’t washed away the image of a young girl with auburn hair and almond eyes, or a boy with a shy, quirked smile.

She loves them, the ghosts of her unborn children and all they represented: The intimacy of family life, ringing laughter and a mantle lined with photographs.

A child’s cry cutting through the night, hushed lullabies and the love-drunk smell of a downy newborn head.

Saturday morning cartoons followed by pancakes and bacon, spilled milk and syrup-sticky fingers.

The stillness of reality plays a harsh contrast to her imagination as she listens to the silence of what could have been.

~*~

He wants to punch a hole through her pristine apartment wall. He wants to hunt down the faceless men who did this to her and kill them with his bare hands, until he’s bloody and sore and near death himself. He wants to run, to put miles and years between them, until his bad luck can’t touch her any more.

Sometimes he wishes he’d never followed when she tried to resign from the Bureau, that he wasn’t so chickenshit as to ask her to stay after paying the price for her loyalty several times over.

He’d signed away his rights, but the thing that makes his face burn and his stomach clench with shame, is that he’d wanted this for himself as much as her. Selfish bastard, he thinks. Still a chickenshit.

So he steels himself, grits his teeth and holds her until she pulls away. He takes her hand, leads her to the couch, offers to make tea.

He’ll stay, because he doesn’t have the courage to let her go.

He’ll stay, because he doesn't have the right to mourn what was never his to lose.

~*~

Mulder is opening cupboards, running water. Sleeves rolled to the elbows, he washes the dishes and waits for the kettle, then swipes at his forehead, leaving a trail of suds across one cheek. The sight brings an unexpected smile to her lips.

Her heart sinks with the enormity of her grief and the weight of too many unspoken words. Everything that’s left of her broken dreams is standing at the counter, returning her smile.

~*~

He settles on the opposite end of the couch, letting the mug warm his hands. She stares into hers for a few minutes before taking a slow sip, closing her eyes. When she opens them, she’s looking at him with an expression he’s seen only once before in real life, and too many times to count in recent fantasy.

“I love you.”

He blinks. His mouth must hang open, because she’s smiling at him now, a sad, tired smile.

“Don’t look so surprised,” she murmurs, hiding what’s left of her pride in her cup.

~*~

“What would you have done?” she asks. If it had worked, she doesn’t have to say.

“I’d have asked you on a date.”

She pauses to steady her cup on the coffee table, the tea sloshing in her startled hands. “A date?”

“You know—nice clothes, awkward conversation, an expensive wine list, at one of those places that mixes the salad dressing while you watch.”

“Really.”

“Really,” he returns, ducking his head.

“You’d ask your newly impregnated, platonic friend and colleague on an honest-to-goodness date.”

His smile is embarrassed enough to be convincing. “Yeah. I, uh…I thought…if I could give you…give you that…”

He stops, frowns. Her throat is tight when she finally breaks the silence. “Give me what?”

The tea goes cold before he can answer.

~*~

He wakes with a sore neck and Scully’s nose pressed into his hip, a throw tangled around her shoulders. The Late Late Show plays in the background, casting muted shadows on the walls.

She stirs when he stretches, blinking up at him from beneath sleep-addled lashes, as if seeing him for the first time. He wonders if this is what it’s like to hold a newborn; heart filled to bursting with terrifying awe.

“Mulder?”

“I’m here,” he murmurs, stroking the hair from her temple. “Sorry I woke you.”

“Mmph,” she says, her breath warming his abdomen through his t-shirt. “S’OK. I should get up, anyway.”

He nods in agreement, drawing his thumb gently along the plane of her cheek, but neither of them move for a long time.

~*~

She emerges from the bathroom just as he’s finished washing the mugs. Bare feet peek out from oversized silk pajamas, and she surprises herself, wrapping her arms around his waist before she can lose her nerve.

“I’ll stay, if you want,” he murmurs, and she loves him for offering so she doesn’t have to ask.

She loves him for so many reasons. Someday she’ll count the ways, line them up, and tuck them away; programmed, categorized, and easily referenced.

“I’d like that,” she says instead, words muffled by the thrum of his heart.

~*~

She fits perfectly in the circle of his arms, the way he always imagined she would. He times his breathing to the rise and fall of her chest and whispers a blessing into her hair.

“I wanted more for you, Scully.”

Her arms tighten around him, but she doesn't answer.

He holds what little hope is shared between them, and prays that it's enough.

~*~

cc @today-in-fic

#the x-files #mulder x scully #fanfic #per manum

74 notes · View notes

randomfoggytiger · 10 months

Text

Mulder's Alien Baby Baby Trauma In-Depth (Part I): Per Manum, and Waking Up to Miracles

Waking Up to Fatherhood - The Past

Before Mulder's abduction, there were two brief times that Scully almost became a mother.

Both were linked to her stolen ova; but one little girl was born weak and sickly, her only purpose to be a lab rat for her government and to be loved in-between these tests by her adoptive parents. Mulder could not be a father to this hybrid, having failed to be a brother to a clone once already. And, sadly, in spite of all of Scully's training and all of Mulder's attempts, little Emily Sims could not be put back together again.

Later-- we will never know how much later-- he finally told Scully about her other remaining ova, the ones that didn't work. But she wanted to try, anyway.

So, before Mulder's abduction, there was a short period of time where he almost became a father.

It was a simple ask from her partner; and one that Mulder took time to contemplate-- whether by his request or hers or mutual understanding we will never know. But ultimately, he'd made his decision back in Home, Pennsylvania-- "I never saw you as a mother before" (though he'd later covered that intimacy in the motel with a biting "Night, Mom.") The donation was a mere formality.

It's established in a Per Manum script here and here (thanks @dunhamhairograpy and @x-files-scripts) that Scully was rushing into the process faster than Mulder, not having taken the time to think far enough down the road. But her partner-- whose mind was more often engaged elsewhere in the hunt for the Truth-- had. He'd thought about work, and he'd thought about them. But mostly he'd thought about the answer being "yes."

Scully cracked, crumbling in desperate joy and clinging to Mulder in sheer happiness. Her eyebrow popped up as self-preservation and distance engaged, doubts swirling at all the calculations, the changes, the unsaid conversations; but Mulder continued to hold her, luxuriating in the rich satisfaction of granting his partner her greatest wish.

When he was assured that Scully wouldn't step back just yet, Mulder lost his focus in daydreams, a secret contentment spilling out of his beautiful soul. Thrilling hopes and dreams of his own little Mulder-Scully poured from his eyes; and a softer, more paternal smile settled onto his mouth. This is the face of a man who accepted, fully, the anticipation and responsibility of fatherhood-- it's a heartbreakingly tender moment that he treasured to himself, as he had (until Amor Fati) never shared his deepest joys and sharpest pains completely with Scully.

(Side note: This is why I set the IVF arc before S7: Mulder still acted on his trademark guarded manner here, an aspect of himself that is set aside after Amor Fati--another post for another time. That revelation changed his outlook, his life, literally his mind. Here he was still reclusive, reluctant, shy-- all things that were swept away in the aftermath of listening to the world and realizing he only wanted to hear Scully.)

Scully still clung, hoping against hope she was reading this-- him-- right; and finally, finally she stepped back, doing her best to project an air of nonchalance. Anything to keep this-- this IVF this-- as low-key as she could, perhaps so as not to spook Mulder or perhaps not to spook herself; but her delight could not be wholly contained.

Her partner saw right through her, giving a little twist of his lips even as his eyes fixated on her flashing emotions.

To relieve Scully's sudden jitteriness, he quipped "At that part I'm a pro" and dipped, leaving her with the solitude she craved to pull her scrambled pieces back together.

However, despite his overthinking and her underthinking, both are a tad overwhelmed-- Scully noticeably so, though Mulder still shrugged off the moment and released a tense sigh before turning his enthusiastic smile back at his partner. There was no fear or reluctance in his posture, and only heightened reservation in hers; so it's safe to assume Mr. and Mrs. Spooky would have relaxed naturally into their impending parenthood long before Spooky Jr. arrived. Both wanted this, yes; and there would still have been some awkward bumps ahead, but it would have led them closer together. They were partners, after all.

Alas, that was not to be.

In the last IVF flashback, Scully walked back into her apartment, quiet and glum. When Mulder popped up on her couch-- having fallen asleep (and still trying to take up as little space as possible on her little people couch, even when unconscious)-- she is surprised to see him there.

Mulder explained, still a little slurred, "Scully? I must have dozed off. I was waiting for you to get back." Ever the gentleman, he offered a reasonable explanation for his presence in her space: even if he owned (and owns) a key to the place, Mulder wouldn't use it without a good reason or life-saving crisis (see post here.)

Her eyes were red-rimmed with more tears on the way; and the top of her hair was messed and staticky, likely having rested on her car steering wheel as the first onslaught of tears struck (as she'd cried before in Elegy and The End.)

Realizing she'd been irreparably caught, Scully shrugged into an acceptance of her grief, pulling her mouth tight in a shallow attempt to placate her partner's concerns. Tears still barely held back (not having expected Mulder to be there to catch her in the act), she slowly walked forward, stoically (if uncomfortably) willing to give Mulder his fair and equal share in this failure.

Nothing escaped her partner's wild, wide-eyed stare, realization sinking his tentatively celebratory feelings. For a moment he just observed, eyes falling before sweeping back up to ask ,"Didn't take, did it?"

"I guess it was too much to hope for," Scully replied, pain cracking through at Mulder's overt disappointment. Her "Starbuck" guilt rose up to accuse her: when Scully loses, she's "failed"; and this personal failure went deep. Discouraged-- and not strong enough to fully engage with Mulder's pain, though she knew it was there-- Scully gave up hope.

Mulder was having none of that-- the same facial expression, too-- as he swept Scully up in his arms, not allowing her guilt to add to the burdens on her back. It's a zany comfort all Mulder's own: none of that, Scully, of course it wasn't too much to hope for; sure, we might never get that wish, but that didn't mean it was worthless to hope all the same.

But, again, his deeper disappointment cracked through once Scully could no longer see and blame herself for his pain.

"It was my last chance," Scully keened, straining with everything in her not to lose control, not to completely despair.

The brittle brutality gripped the both of them; and Mulder tightened his hold, rocking them into a calm only two souls united in this grief could experience.

His strength and comfort allowing her to settle back into herself, Scully pulled back just before being hit with a fresh wave of hurt; but Mulder settled that, too, with his special brand of soothing: a forehead kiss.

"Never give up on a miracle," he intoned in accents he'd never used before: solid, unshakeable, unwavering faith tempered by fully matured love.

It was almost too much for Scully; but she dodged last minute to plant a kiss on his cheek instead. (Another reason I believe this took place before Amor Fati: Scully had claimed her right to forehead kisses after his dream confession and revelation. Here she is still too tentative and unsure. Another discussion for another time.)

Mulder consumed her like the ouroboros on her back; and the two closed the loop, clinging to each other-- reclaiming their life and future even with the death of their dreams.

Waking Up to Miracles - The Present

Mulder spent the last three months being split open, pulled apart, and screaming for Scully's help.

Then one night, he stopped waking up.

When awareness does slowly return, his eyes open in a hospital, groggy and sluggish... and he can't remember what happened to bring him here. But that isn't unusual in his line of work; and he knows memory will return with time.

As usual, Scully is stationed by his bed, hesitantly blissful in the face of-- what he considered to be-- another of his mundane recoveries.

It's too tempting to take advantage of her eagerness; and his playfulness gets the better of him. "Who... are you?"

After he's deemed she's had the proper reaction-- shock and a possible heart attack-- he mischievously beams back at her, resuming their usual cheerful hospital camaraderie.

But... her reaction is stronger than usual: a sudden whoosh of relief, swept-aside bedside manner leaving room for open, intimate glee. Her haunted eyes almost speak for her-- "Do you have any idea what you've been through?"-- make him more serious, contemplative.

"I know what I see in your face." Feeling cared for, comforted, to the pit of his soul as his partner begins to stroke his hair, he mouths "I love you", lighting her face up with trembling gratitude.

And him knowing her, still, and loving her, still, melts Scully. He watches as she sinks down in weighted grief and heady relief by his side, soaking her tears in his hospital gown. Although he tries to move closer to comfort or cradle her, his body, he finds, is unyielding. His sober mood turns somber, trying to catch at the greater mystery snagged under so much heartache. Despite the sleep of recovery tugging at him, there is no way he can rest without making her feel better.

"Anybody miss me?"

His partner's choked laugh and her sturdier grip assure and relax him more than any reply; and he drifts off, content.

Mulder misses, however, the severity of his injuries, the signs of his partner's advanced pregnancy, and the shadow of her new partner lengthening the doorway.

But those wait, lurking, with his nightmares.

Thank you for reading~

Enjoy!