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Chapter Text

He can’t see her, and that’s what scares him the most. The note said she would be here. Here as in here, right where’s he’s standing. Furiously, he rips the sheet of paper from his pocket and with shaking hands, scans the poorly-written letter for the thousandth time, even though he memorized it on first read.

Plot 67. Old farmhouse. She’ll be in the door. You have 2 hours.

Standing in the threshold of the doorway, Mulder shoves the note back into his pocket and clicks on his flashlight, poking it around as he enters the farmhouse. The floor creaks underneath his boots and he feels the hairs on his arm stand on end.

He does a quick scan of the room and to his horror, doesn’t see her. In fact, the entire room appears completely empty, devoid of furniture, rugs, knick-knacks, animals . . . except—except . . .

He takes a few steps forward and notices something he missed on first inspection. A closet at the back of the room.

Mulder is at the door to the closet before his brain can even process the movement of his feet. He swings open the handle and drops to his knees as red hair and pale skin tumble out.

“Scully,” he breathes over her lifeless body. He shoves the flashlight into his mouth as he runs a hand across her bare shoulder, quickly noting the absence of bruises or open wounds. Save for her lack of clothing, she looks untouched.

Dipping his hands under her back and knees, he lifts her into his chest, then shifts her so he can bundle her inside his down jacket. Here in the black of a rural Canadian winter night, the temperature has reached an all-time low and Scully is practically naked.

He feels a very shallow breath across his neck and pulls her in closer, celebrating the victory of her life while frantically wondering how he’s going to keep her alive.

He hiked here on foot, because there aren’t roads in or out of this farmland. He has no transportation, no shelter. The nearest town is sixty miles away, he thinks.

Scully seems to curl into him, her body seeking the warmth she has lost. He wonders whether her kidnappers will return to the farmhouse, which seems to be the only real shelter nearby. The note said he had two hours. They have at least an hour left, if his watch is correct.

His mind debates itself briefly before he decides to huddle up in the corner of the room with Scully draped across him. For the first time in his life, he came to this mission slightly prepared, and among other things, he has two guns and a set of knives in his backpack and strapped to his belt. This room, with its four walls, is the closest thing he and Scully have to survival tonight. He will stay and fight.

And in the meantime, he thinks as he pulls an emergency blanket out of his backpack and wraps it around them, he’ll think about what to say to her when she finally regains consciousness.

Because what do you say to someone who’s hated you for four months? He swallows at the thought. He knows that even a daring rescue in the middle of a Canadian winter won’t be enough to make it up to Scully. He fucked up big, and they both know this is the end.

As he tucks a warm thermos against Scully’s skin and settles his arms around her shoulders, he takes a second to be grateful.

Because he knows this is likely the last time he’ll ever get to touch her.

That is, he thinks with a wry smile, if she doesn’t slap me so hard when she wakes up that my teeth fall out.

He stares down at his partner’s auburn locks, presses his lips together, and waits. This is going to be a hell of a night.

Chapter Text

Scully

Dying, she’s dying, she realizes, a gasp ripping out of her throat.

She is in water. Cold, frozen, chunks of ice floating around her. Head underwater, hands clawing for purchase on the rough river bottom. Someone yanking the back of her neck and pulling her above the surface, but just for a moment.

“Where is the boy?” they scream, and before she can answer, she’s being shoved down into the river again.

She opens her mouth but can’t breathe. She’s suffocating, her lungs are filling with water, she’s losing control, she’s about to run out of air—

She feels lips to her lips, warm against cold. Then a breath of air down her throat, expanding her lungs, filling her up, the breath of life—

She opens her eyes.

She is not underwater.

Someone is kissing her. Someone is pressing his lips roughly and desperately into her and she yanks back, only to be caught by two strong arms pulling her back in. It’s them, they’ve come back, someone is trying to kiss her again—

“No, get off of me!” she manages to wheeze as she whips back in the darkness.

“Scully, Scully, it’s me!” she hears, and she freezes.

Suddenly, she knows. She recognizes the all-encompassing smell of him, the warm strength of his biceps surrounding her, the rough, raspy sound of his underused voice.

Her heart starts to beat triple time and she wrenches back again, trying to escape his arms, trying to push away from him, but even when he lets go of her, something is pressing her into him—his jacket. She’s zipped into his fucking jacket.

Their closeness terrifies her and she needs to get out. Now.

“Get this thing off!” she shouts, but her voice is weak and Mulder doesn’t immediately comply.

“Scully, I—”

“I said off!” she repeats, this time much louder, her vocal cords screaming in pain, and when he doesn’t move, she slaps him.

“What the fuck?” he gasps, and then he’s ripping open the coat, letting her wiggle her way out of his arms and onto a cold, wooden floor.

She pants as freezing air settles in around her, chilling her bare skin and spreading goosebumps down her arms. She can’t really see him, not in the dark, but she can sense the rage pouring off of him.

“You slapped me?” he asks, incredulous. She sees him raise a palm to his cheek in disbelief.

“You kissed me?” she echoes angrily, trying not to remember the last time their lips touched. “Did you really fucking kiss me?”

“No, Scully, you weren’t breathing, I was giving you mouth-to-mouth—”

“You have no right,” she growls, but he’s crawling up to her, placing a hand on her wrist and squeezing. She yanks it away like she’s been burned.

“You scared me,” he says honestly, and even though she can’t make out his eyes in the dark, she knows he’s telling the truth by the way his voice breaks. “I thought you were going into shock, or a coma, or—I don’t know. I was trying to help you,” he explains feebly.

She studies the shadowy figure in front of her for a long moment before nodding petulantly and wrapping her arms around her chest. She’s only just now realized that she’s only wearing a t-shirt and underwear, but she doesn’t even care. He’s seen her in far fewer clothes than this.

“At least get under the blanket,” he says contritely, passing her what feels like an aluminum emergency blanket. She doesn’t stop to consider why he’s here, or how he found her, or why he even knew she was missing. They haven’t seen each other in months. They don’t even live in the same state or work for the same agency. He should know nothing about her, which has been her intention for four grueling months.

But it’s Mulder, and in the very secret recesses of her mind, she knew he was keeping tabs on her. It’s just how he’s always operated, so of course he found her. Of course.

Begrudgingly, because it is cold, she wraps the blanket around herself and stands, determined to get as far away from him as possible. Although she can’t see him properly, she can barely stand the feeling of being close to him. It reminds her too much of those months before—The Before. When being close to him was a gift, a pleasure. Now it’s just a curse.

“Scully,” Mulder sighs, and she cringes at the familiarity of that sound, “where are you going? I know you probably want to shove my face into a pile of shit right now, but we’ve got to stick together if we’re going to get out of here.”

She hears him stand and follow her and her hackles rise. Yeah, she thinks she would like to shove his face in some cow manure. It wouldn’t even be a tenth of what he deserves, though.

“Stay away from me,” she warns as he approaches.

“Scully,” he groans, and then she feels him freeze. She stills too. Her body, apparently, is still intimately connected to his, able to sense the subtle distinctions in his movements even in the darkness.

She feels his hand come out of nowhere and wrap around her wrist, squeezing hard—a warning.

Her spine straightens and suddenly she is scared. Have they come back?

“Closet,” Mulder whispers, and she wrenches her arm out of his grasp because she can get there just fine by herself.

She is surprised when Mulder doesn’t sneak into the space with her, but rather shuts the closet door on her without explanation.

For a long while, all she hears is Mulder’s quiet breathing, and she wonders whether he just imagined he heard something.

She’s pushing open the cabinet door when she hears gunshots and glass breaking. Shocked, she slams shut the door again and goes rigid as she hears the return volley of Mulder’s shots.

The gunfire seems to go on forever before it abruptly ends. She waits for Mulder to open the cabinet door but there’s no movement. Suddenly, she’s terrified of what that means for Mulder. Did he get shot? Is he okay?

And then . . . was I too mean to him?, she starts to worry.

A confusing swirl of regret and guilt and anger heat up in her system and she starts to push open the cabinet door.

A hand shoots out and stills her movement, and to her relief, she hears Mulder whisper: “not yet.”

Subdued, and a bit embarrassed that her thoughts started to lean sentimental, she goes still again, startling only when the sound of gunshots reignites. Before she can decide who’s winning this fight, Mulder is yanking the door open and grabbing her by the arm forcefully.

“Now,” he tells her, “we gotta get out of here.” Even if she wanted to pull away from him, he wouldn’t let her. He has a vice-like grip on her bicep as he drags her through the front door and out into the cold dawn of a new morning. She tries to catch sight of the bodies littering the room, but it’s too dark to determine whether Mulder just massacred her captors or not.

Outside on the porch, they both pause expectantly, Mulder’s hand not leaving her arm as they turn and finally face each other. In the early light of day, Scully studies her former partner. He looks thin and tired and sports a black eye, which doesn’t surprise her, but the scar on his chin does. She’s never noticed it before, which means it’s happened in the time they’ve been separated.

His eyes scan her quickly and she squirms under his scrutiny, trying not to wonder what he thinks about her long hair and lack of makeup. She feels naked under his gaze, and vulnerable.

“You okay?” he finally asks, releasing his grip slightly.

She swallows, because he really doesn’t have a right to ask whether she’s okay. He lost that right four months ago, when she found him . . .

She shuts her eyes to the memories.

“Fine,” she says with a resolute nod. She doesn’t bother asking after him because she doesn’t want to hear him say he’s fine.

“Me too,” he finally says.

She scowls. He’s not fine, and they both know it.

She can’t stand hearing yet another lie come out of his mouth.

Chapter Text

Mulder

She won’t speak to him, won’t even look at him. It reminds him of the time he thought it would be funny to pants her during an autopsy. She didn’t speak to him for three days after that. Of course, that had been quite different. Then, she hadn’t been filled with a bitter, resentful rage that had been simmering inside her for four long months.

He glances over his shoulder, where Scully is stoically following behind him, her chin perched high even though her feet are caked in dirt and mud and even though her t-shirt barely reaches her thighs. She’s still got that blanket tucked around her shoulders, but he wishes she’d take his jacket. He’s offered it to her six times and she’s declined every time, but he thinks the old Scully would accept it after just three polite declinations.

She’s got to be cold. He’s freezing and he’s wearing boots, socks, thermal underwear, a fleece sweater, and a down jacket. And yet she refuses to let him hand off even one item of clothing. It’s infuriating, really, how stubborn and strong-willed she can be. She’s going to die out here if she doesn’t just admit that she’s freezing and take his sweater, for Christ’s sake.

He wants to ask her if she’s eaten—certain that she hasn’t—but from her stony silence, he gathers he’s in for a tongue-lashing if he bothers to open his mouth again. And so they continue on in an uneasy quiet, his brain sputtering and fizzing every time he tries to brainstorm how to get her to talk to him.

He could apologize, but she seems far too angry to properly hear out any type of apology. He could open his mouth and word-vomit his way into an explanation of what happened that night, but even four months later, he still isn’t quite sure how to tell that story.

Plus, the thought of that night makes him queasy. He’s had four months to process it, but still, he gets nauseous and sweaty whenever he remembers it.

What hurts the most, when looking back on that night, is the thought that he and Scully had been really, truly happy. Sure, the X-Files themselves were an endangered species, but he got to go to bed every night holding her in his arms, got to kiss her in the basement office, got to peel off her nylons and run his tongue up her thigh.

And she wanted him—and the way she wanted him had been intoxicating. He had no idea how well she had been hiding it all those years, but after they took the first step—a kiss stolen in the middle of a frozen wasteland in the front seat of a Sno-Cat—she had been all in. She was ravenous in bed, and expressive physically in ways she wasn’t in words. He knew, back then, that she loved him, even if she couldn’t say it. He knew in the way she held his hand, or smiled warmly at him, or kissed his forehead. He even knew it by the way she went down on him, all exuberance and enthusiasm.

He had told her he loved her, had done it on Day One out there in Antarctica. He wonders what she would say today if he told her he still loves her.

He hears an ooph and it yanks him from his musings. Scully has stopped and is staring worriedly at something behind him. He turns and glances over his shoulder, and now he remembers.

The river crossing.

On his trek in, he had crossed this river in the middle of the night, anxious as hell to get to Scully and completely oblivious to his own physical well-being. Now that he’s staring at the great beast of a waterway in the cold light of day, he realizes he got very lucky that he didn’t drown.

Scully’s voice breaks through his thoughts.

“We can’t go around it, I guess?” she asks, and her voice is wary. He looks at her and sees the fear behind her careful expression, senses the anxiety rolling off her tensed posture. She is afraid.

“It’s a hell of a cold dip,” he acknowledges, “but we’ll manage. I made it over it once before.”

Scully’s eyes widen imperceptibly but when she catches him watching her, she shuts down, glancing at the ground.

Nodding resolutely to herself, she starts to forge ahead, bravely pushing past him to stand at the foot of the riverbed. The river itself looks deceptively shallow, but he knows it’s waist-deep in some parts.

“Is this the narrowest entrance?” she asks and he shrugs.

“Looks like it,” he guesses, glancing to his left and right. She rolls her eyes at his nonchalance and starts to toe her way into the water.

Before she can take one more step, he grabs her arm and pulls her back into him. Helping her is second nature to him, but he immediately knows he’s overstepped when her red hair whips him in the face and he’s caught staring at two furiously blue eyes.

“What the hell?” she snarls, trying to rip away from him.

But he holds on tight, unwilling to let her move. He knows she’s going to hate him even more after this.

“I can’t let you do that,” he says calmly, in his hostage-crisis voice. “Your feet . . . no clothes . . . .” He shrugs nervously.  

She swallows hard, expression softening just slightly as she nods. “So, what’s your suggestion?” she finally asks, and he releases her arm.

Scratching the back of his neck, he stares at the ground when he speaks. “I, um, I should probably carry you. I’m taller, and I have these boots on . . . .”

He doesn’t remember a time when he’s ever been afraid of Scully, but he’s terrified to look up and see her expression now. And so he doesn’t look, but just continues to stare at the ground and pray it eventually swallows them both whole.

“Fine,” she finally says, but her voice is tight.

He tries not to show his relief, instead focusing on transferring his backpack to the front of his body so he can carry Scully piggyback, which seems the best way to keep his hands free for balance.

He stoops and she begrudgingly hops up onto his back, and he can feel how rigid her body is, how she’s trying not to let her chest press against his back. Almost as if she’s disgusted at the idea of touching him. It makes his heart sink.

“Scully,” he hears himself saying, “it wasn’t what you thought—”

“I swear to God, Mulder—”

“It wasn’t what you thought!”

“Just move, dammit!”

That silences him. He proceeds into the river like a kicked puppy, his brain mush and heart aching and thighs immobilizing in the cold water. At the deepest point of the river, he hikes Scully up as high as she’ll go, but her feet and ankles still dip into the water and she gasps at the cold. At least she knows what he’s enduring for her.

He’s climbing out of the river bed when he slips on a rock and almost sends them careening to the ground. Scully shrieks in his ear but he rebalances quickly, then high-tails it out of the cold and onto the other side of the bank.

She jumps down and immediately collapses onto a wide, flat stone, and that’s when he notices that she’s trembling.

“You okay?” he asks carefully, approaching her slowly. The river crossing was treacherous, but it wasn’t that scary.

“Fine,” she says tightly, her eyes flitting to his. She doesn’t look fine. He waits for her to ask if he, too, is okay, since he’s the one who just crossed a river for her, but she doesn’t bother.

He realizes that perhaps it’s not just anger keeping her at a distance. Perhaps she’s truly stopped caring about him altogether.

He takes another step forward to ask if something is wrong, but her eyes warn him to stay back. He pauses, then turns on his heel and walks into the forest. It’s clear this conversation is over.

Chapter Text

Scully

They haven’t spoken even two words to each other since the river, but she’s hungrily eyeing his backpack, wondering if he’s got any food in there. She hasn’t eaten in days but she really doesn’t want to tell him she’s hungry. Maybe when he falls asleep, she’ll raid the backpack.

It took him almost half an hour, but Mulder managed to start a small fire with some collected firewood and a lighter in his backpack. Every hour or so, he stands up to feed it more wood, and Scully is grateful only to the extent she knows the fire is the only thing keeping them alive tonight.

She has her blanket pulled tightly across her body and is sitting as close to the flames as is reasonably safe, but she’s still not warm. It’s far too cold and she’s wearing far too few clothes for a small fire and a tiny blanket to do much more than stave off immediate hypothermia.

To his credit, Mulder did toss her his down jacket right before settling in across from her to go to sleep, but she refuses to put it on because she won’t admit defeat. Not while he’s still awake, that is.  

She’s so sick of his puppy dog eyes, of his wounded looks, of his last-ditch attempts to explain away that night.

And how could he explain it? She gets a lump in her throat even now, even four months later.

There’s no clear, rational, reasonable explanation for what she saw when she walked into his apartment that evening: Diana Fowley, large breasts bare and full and perky and perfect, sitting astride a naked Mulder in his bed.

Mulder hadn’t seen Scully, hadn’t noticed when she poked her head in through the bedroom door to say hello. She had fled the apartment only moments later, and then she had waited outside the door, her self-destructive tendencies keeping her feet firmly planted by the elevator. Maybe Mulder would run out and tell her it was all some grand mistake. Maybe he would kick Diana out of his place.

But no. Diana stayed inside for almost two hours. Two hours. They had been together for two hours.

Nothing good could have happened in two hours, Scully thinks with a sigh towards the heavens. She’s been over it hundreds, if not thousands, of times, and although it has been painful, she’s finally accepted it for what it is:

Mulder cheated on her with Diana.

Some days, that’s all she needs to fuel herself forward, to remind herself why she moved away and why she’ll never look back. But other days, she’s more masochistic and she wants to know the dirty details. Was that the first time? Was it the last? Is he still seeing her? Who initiated it? Was it any good? Did they practice safe sex?

Ever the practical thinker, Scully had gotten tested just days later, just to make sure. Her negative test results had filled her with a mixture of relief and righteous anger. 

But more than all of that, she wondered whether he was still seeing Diana, and whether he loved her. 

And does he still love me? 

A chill settles over her at the thought and she hugs her arms around her closer, the blanket shifting noisily over her shoulders.

Across from her, Mulder is as restless as he normally is, tossing and turning and sighing and grunting. To her frustration, it all reminds her of the many times she would wake up in the middle of the night to him hogging the covers, or throwing an arm across her shoulders, or disappearing under the sheets to plant kisses to her panties.

Snapping shut her eyes, she banishes the unwelcome memories and focuses on how tired her body is. She needs to sleep. Today was exhausting, mentally, physically, and emotionally. Not only does she have Mulder to contend with, but if she has to face down another river crossing, she might not make it out in one piece.

They hold her under until her eyes start to pop from the pressure. She can’t breathe, can’t move, her arms are bound, her legs tied—

She bites her lip hard, forcing herself back into the present. Across the fire, Mulder is still moving around. She shuts her eyes and concentrates on sleep.

Sleep.

Chapter Text

Scully

The cold is so penetrating, Scully can barely sleep. The chill from the wind and the fact that Mulder has fallen asleep and allowed the fire to die forces her to consider her options: she could just . . . die. She could literally just let herself die, and she’s considering it.

Or . . .

She props herself up on her elbow and considers Mulder sitting across from her, his face burrowed into his nice jacket. She knows what it feels like to sink into his warmth, to be wrapped up in the safety and comfort of a sleeping Mulder. It used to be one of the best feelings in the entire world. Now, the thought makes her stomach churn.

It’s not that she finds Mulder repulsive these days. She could never truly feel that way towards the man she has loved for so many years. But he broke her heart, and in the cruelest, most unthinkable way. The thought of crawling over into his arms to use him as a bed-warmer makes her nauseous from head to toe. To sink into arms that held Diana, to press her body up against a chest that Diana’s bare breasts have brushed, to nestle her nose into the crook of his neck, where Diana’s lips have kissed.

She swallows hard and the wind sends her shuddering into herself. She doesn’t want to die, not really. She’s done worse things for survival than cuddle with Mulder.

Steeling herself, she stands, knees cracking, and first grabs for the jacket Mulder threw down to her. She yanks it over her shoulders and then comes to stand over Mulder, knowing this is her last chance to bail on her decision.

But Mulder blinks awake and in the dying fire, the embers light up his eyes. He stares at her with a funny expression and then, as if realizing why she’s come, opens his arms. For a moment, she just stares back at him, all the fury and pain and grief of watching him with Diana rolling over her like waves. She pushes back at it hard, but still the anger comes. When she finally forces herself to sit and lie back against him, she is trembling, not from cold but from rage.

Mistaking her shaking for chills, Mulder pulls the blanket over her shoulders and tucks her in gently, then gingerly places an arm around her and pulls her into him.

For a moment, she forgets her blind rage as warmth seeps into her skin and bones, and she suppresses a contented sigh. She forgot just how warm Mulder is—a furnace on the coldest night.

But when he brings her even closer, pressing his chin to the top of her head in a too-familiar move, she pushes back on him.

“No,” she whispers, and she feels the life leaving his body.

Why is he so insistent on creating intimacy between them, after all he did to her?

“This is just survival,” she reminds him quietly.

“But I—”

“No,” she says, and he pulls back enough to leave space between their bodies. She is still warm under the blanket with him, but she feels a coldness seeping into her chest.

In the end, neither of them sleeps, she’s sure of it. She can practically hear Mulder thinking all night, and she knows by the rigid stillness of his body that he hasn’t fallen into his normal restless sleep. For her part, she can’t stop thinking about Diana, even though she’s worked with a therapist for weeks trying to ban those types of destructive thoughts from her mind.

At first morning light, Mulder stands, making sure not to jostle the blanket from her shoulders, and leaves. He doesn’t tell her where he’s going, and at first, she doesn’t worry about it. But he’s gone a long time. It’s been too long for a bathroom break and she starts to wonder whether he just up and left her. Surely Mulder wouldn’t do that to her. But he did cheat on her, and she never thought he’d do something like that.

It's been hours by the time he finally returns, his face haggard but eyes unapologetic. He doesn’t actually look regretful for his absence at all; in fact, he looks a little . . . cheerful.

“Hey, Scully, look what I—”

“Where the hell were you?” she snaps angrily, rising to her feet.

It’s then that she notices the pair of rabbits hanging from his shoulder. He went hunting. For them. For food. Why couldn’t he have told her?

“Breakfast,” he says, nodding at the dead animals. It’s enough to make her blood boil.

“You couldn’t have just told me you were leaving to go get food?” she spits, and she realizes she sounds half-mad and full-crazy.

He has the audacity to look wounded. “Would you have even bothered to listen to my explanation?”

She wants to say no, but she can’t bear the thought of giving him what he wants. Instead, she grabs the rabbits from him and begins to prepare them for breakfast.

“Thank you,” she mutters as she takes a first bite, almost an hour later. The meat is overcooked and gamey, but she is starving and tries not to devour immediately.

He shrugs and as she eats, some of her anger begins to disappear. She wonders whether she was too harsh to him. Mulder is nothing if not a self-punisher. Instinctively, she knows he’s probably been beating himself up for months for what he did to her. He probably hates himself, has probably put himself through the ringer for letting her get away.

It makes her briefly sad and she feels a surge of affection for the old partnership they once shared, for the people they were before Diana. That Mulder—though sometimes ornery, difficult, and flighty—would never have intentionally hurt her. She has to believe, somewhere past her stone-cold heart, that he didn’t do what he did just to hurt her.

She thinks about young Mulder losing Samantha and the many years of self-flagellation that followed. She thinks about Mulder in the hospital when she had her cancer, how he could hardly look at her for weeks, how he blamed himself for the chip in her neck. She thinks about Mulder every time she got hurt on a case, and how no matter the circumstance, he thought he was at fault for not being a protective partner.

She swallows hard as she watches Mulder stare listlessly at their fire, and she feels a surge of pity. Even if he did something horrible to her, he’s doing something even more horrible to himself.  

She’s about to open her mouth to apologize for her rudeness when they hear it. The crack of a stick, just past Mulder’s shoulder in the brush.

Instantly, they both go on high alert. Mulder catches her eye and clicks the safety off his gun, sliding her another one.

And then they run.

Chapter Text

Mulder

He’s running so fast he almost loses Scully, but he slows down enough to grab her hand and drag her with him through the trees. Branches and needles rip and tear at his clothes and he wonders how Scully’s bare feet are holding up through the undergrowth.

Behind them, he hears the crashing sound of someone chasing them heavily on foot, and he can’t tell if there’s only one gunman or many.

Together, they trip down a ravine and slide along a patch of frozen mud, Scully suffering silently through what must be unbearably painful for her.

When he realizes he can no longer hear their pursuer, Mulder pauses, bringing Scully up with a tug to her wrist. Maybe they lost him. And then a ricochet of bullets comes flying at their heads and Scully yanks him into a low crouch. If he’s surprised she tried to save his life, he says nothing.

He tugs her up when the bullets stop and they start sprinting across a wide expanse of frozen earth, until suddenly he hears a sound that might save them—a river. They can lose him in the river. They pound through a dense copse of fir trees, the ground thick with needles, and stop short on the banks.

The river looks shallow enough for them to cross without hazard, so he pushes Scully forward without hesitation.

“Go, go, go!” he encourages her, glancing over his shoulder. He can see a man approaching, his gun poised to fire again. As Scully enters the water, Mulder raises his own weapon and aims, but misses in the thickness of the trees.

He turns to follow Scully into the river and sees her still standing on the bank, completely frozen.

“Scully, go!” he shouts, starting to push her. Their pursuer is only thirty yards away now. 

She turns toward him with wide, terrified eyes. “I can’t,” she whispers, and his mind fills with a hundred little details.

She did this at the other river, he realizes suddenly, his profiler’s mind working double-time to pin down why his normally tough-as-nails partner is suddenly water-resistant. She was terrified at the other river. Shaking when we got out. Scared as hell.

“Mulder, I can’t,” she tells him again, and he is about to gather her in his arms and carry her across the water when he hears a horrified scream rip out of her body.

The gunman has exited the forest and now stands just feet away, pointing his weapon directly at Scully. Before Mulder can raise his own weapon in response, the gunman starts shooting, and Mulder does the only thing he can think to do: he jumps in front of Scully, and the world goes black.

Chapter Text

Scully

“Mulder! Mulder, wake up!” Scully screams desperately, her hands pressing hard into his left shoulder where he was hit. Ten feet away, the gunman lies dead, her bullet in his brain.

“Mulder,” she cries again, worried about the amount of blood he’s losing. She hitches him up onto her bare knees, ignoring the searing pain in her feet and legs from their sprint through the forest. “Wake up, please, please, you have to wake up!”  

She doesn’t know who she’s pleading with more—him or God. As she loses him little by little here on the cold frozen ground of the river bank, she curses at the thought that she won’t be able to tell him how sorry she is for being so hateful to him, how much she genuinely wishes things had worked out between them.

Regret fills her mouth like a sharp poison. She’s been mindlessly cruel to him, to a person she once loved more than breath, more than air. In her heartbreak, she’s been selfish and short-sighted, failing to recognize that even if he did wrong her, he still loved her so much and so well for so many years. They were partners before they were lovers. Best friends before romantic interest crept into the picture. Why had she let Diana Fowley ruin that love?

“Mulder, I’m sorry,” she whispers over his body, feeling tears gathering at her lashes. She should never have let Diana come between the genuine affection they have for each other. Even if she wasn’t going to be his romantic choice, she would still always be his friend. And as a friend, she has failed him.

In her arms, Mulder takes a sharp breath and Scully startles. His mouth opens like he’s gasping for breath and she catches his cheek with a trembling hand.

“Mulder?” she asks nervously, daring to hope that he will survive this.

Slowly, his eyes blink open, and she notes that they’re blown-out from blood loss.

“Oh, thank God,” she breathes, then remembers to press down on his wound.

He curses quietly at the pressure, his face twisting in agony.

“You shoot me again, Scully?” he teases, but his face is wan and pale and all he can manage is a grimace.

“Mulder,” she sputters as relief washes down her body. If he’s feeling alive enough to joke with her, he’ll probably be alright. A small, thankful smile catches on her lips and she ducks her head to hide it. It makes sense that she’s feeling so emotional about him, but she doesn’t want the sentimentality of the moment to overcome her. She doesn’t want to do anything rash, like kiss him.

Mulder breaks the mood when he jolts up in her arms, pushing her hands off him.

“Scully, the gunman!” he starts shouting, aimlessly looking around for their pursuer. But the searing pain in his arm sends him curling back into the ground, groaning in agony. 

“He’s dead,” she tells him, her voice calmer, more controlled, less emotional. “I shot him.”

Slowly, he closes his eyes and nods. “That’s my girl.”

Her breath catches in her throat, a lump forming immediately. She hasn’t been his girl for a long time, but God, does it feel nice to hear it coming from his lips.

Slowly, his wound stops bleeding and Scully uses scraps of the gunman’s clothing to bandage up Mulder’s arm. It will need hospital-grade medical care sooner rather than later, but her makeshift bandage should do the trick for the next few hours. She uses the time ripping and tearing fabric to stop herself from thinking too hard about the fact that Mulder took a bullet for her. 

She ties off the bandage and helps Mulder sit propped up under a tree, covering him carefully with the emergency blanket to prevent him from going into shock. Then, with her hands, she brings him cupfuls of water, and he drinks gratefully. It takes almost ten trips to the river and back before he tells her he’s had enough.

Exhausted, she sits beside him, props her arms on her knees, and lowers her head onto her forearms. She wishes she had more time to think, more time to process what just happened.

But she also wants answers. She turns her head to the side and watches Mulder for a long time. When it seems like he’s fallen asleep, she licks her lips tentatively.  

“Why did you take a bullet for me?” she breathes, wondering if he can even hear her, and half-hoping that he can’t.

He opens his eyes slightly and looks over at her. His brow creases infinitesimally, as if he’s trying to figure something out. Finally, he just asks. “Why are you so afraid of the water?”

His expression is so earnest, so caring, so discerning. He sees her, knows her. He catalogues her every movement, every word. And she decides she’s too tired to play games anymore. If he wants the full story, he gets the full story.

“They tortured me in a river,” she tells him, meeting his eyes. “They held me underwater until I couldn’t hold my breath anymore. Multiple times, every day. It was cold and black and I lost consciousness every time.” She swallows, feels a tremble in her bones at the memory.  

His eyes study her carefully for a long moment, and she knows he is making some kind of calculation. The intensity behind his expression spooks her and she starts to look away.

“I jumped in front of that bullet because I’m still in love with you,” he finally says, his expression open and honest. “And I didn’t cheat on you, Scully. It wasn’t at all what you saw. I would never do that to you. I loved you. Still do, really do.”

She doesn’t know exactly what to think, and fears the hope unfurling in her chest at his earnestness. She feels her heart starting to bend toward him, just enough to make her open to hearing him out.

“We should talk about this later,” she finally replies, giving him a small smile to let him know she’s not dismissing him altogether. She wants to hear his story, but she needs more time to process what he’s told her.

I’m still in love with you is not what she expected to hear and it sends shivers up her spine, tantalizing, tempting glimmers of joy and hope.

Mulder shuts his eyes and she rests for a while too, then gathers the strength to make a fire. When the blaze comes to life, she shifts Mulder off the tree and pulls him into her arms, letting him use her as a pillow for the night.

After months of hating him, it feels strange to be filled with warm, tender thoughts towards him. He loves her. Even if he hurt her, and even if she doesn’t understand it, he’s always loved her. And he claims he still loves her. It’s enough to fill her with a hope that she hasn’t felt in four months: that maybe their friendship, their partnership isn’t a total loss. Maybe they can still salvage some of what they used to be.

Chapter Text

Mulder

He wakes up in pain, desperately wishing he had some Tylenol or Advil. From what Scully can tell, the bullet just grazed his shoulder, which is lucky, because if it had been lodged in his muscle, she wouldn’t have been able to help him much on her own.

He shifts over to his right side, where Scully has tucked into him in her sleep. The blanket whispers as he moves around trying to find a comfortable spot, but the ground is hard and wet and cold and his shoulder is throbbing more and more with every movement.

But still, he smiles slightly at the feeling of Scully beside him, her small body pressed against his own, as familiar as the back of his hand. He can’t see her well in the darkness, but the dying fire sends a warm glow over their bodies and it lights up her bright hair.

“You ‘kay?” she mumbles in her sleep, and he feels her hand reach up to touch his forehead. “No fever,” she whispers, half to herself. Her hand lingers for a long minute, as if she’s forgotten to move it, and his smile grows.

He shifts slightly closer to her and her hand falls as she tucks herself in closer to his chest, pressing her face into his sternum. His shoulder burns but he can’t resist lifting his arm to rest his hand against her hair, petting it softly, remembering how natural and easy this once was between them.

But there is a thousand-foot wall standing silently and gravely between them, and it’s time to knock it down. He feels his heart start to pound and palms start to sweat at the thought of finally sharing his story with Scully. Will she believe me? What will she think?

“You awake?” he asks, suddenly needing to tell her immediately, before he loses his nerve.

It’s not an easy story to tell.

“I can be,” she says with a stretch, sounding more like herself. “Are you hurting?”

Shrugging, he swallows thickly. “I want to tell you what happened. I don’t want to wait any longer.”

In the dim glow of the fire, he sees her eyes open, feels her push up to sitting. She stares at him for a long time, then nods. “Let me stoke the fire, and then let’s do this,” she finally says.

Looking up at her, he holds her gaze steadily, hoping it’s clear in his eyes how much he needs her to hear him out, to listen, to believe. To empathize. To grieve.

She looks down at him and frowns at his expression, then reaches out to touch his face. Her touch is gentle and tender and full of unexpressed affection. “I want to listen now,” she tells him quietly, her voice full of pain. “And I’m so sorry I didn’t before.”

He nods.

This is going to hurt like a bitch.  

Chapter Text

Mulder

“Scully,” Mulder starts after she’s gotten the fire going higher, rubbing his hands down his face, “first, I want you to know this isn’t a good story.”

She stares back stoically, her expression open but neutral.

He shifts slightly, his shoulder throbbing harder from the rapid pounding of his heart. “It started out that morning. I had a migraine.” He takes her step by step through that day; how he woke up with a headache like he’d pounded his head against a wall. How he’d downed some Ibuprofen before work, yet somehow, the headache had gotten steadily worse. How he started to feel nauseous from the pain towards the end of the day.

“You were at Quantico,” he finally adds, and she remembers. “I didn’t want to bother you about it.”

He hates this next part of the story and feels bile rising up inside him as he fiddles around with how to tell it.

“Diana, uh, she stopped by the basement that afternoon and noticed I wasn’t feeling well.” He sees Scully’s back straighten slightly, notices her hands begin to clench. She’s a smart woman. She knows what happens next. “She, uh, she went up to her office and brought back some medicine. She told me—she told me it was a painkiller.”

He meets her eyes pleadingly. “I was desperate for some relief.”

A long, terrible silence, followed by a pressurized type of anger.  

“Did Diana rape you?” Scully whispers darkly, her face blanching as she catches on, her entire body going stone cold.  

He barrels ahead, ignoring her for now. “She drove me back to my apartment. And you know it wasn’t a pain reliever, Scully, it was some sort of drug.”

“Mulder, did she—”

He shakes his head gently, meeting her eyes so she knows he’s telling the truth about this part. “No, she didn’t rape me. She really didn’t.” He shifts in his seat nervously. “But she did kiss me once I started to feel woozy from the medicine. I don’t remember if I kissed her back, truthfully. I—my memory’s foggy on that piece.”

“Well, you were under the influence,” Scully says rationally, and he can see her desperation to make sense of this, her need to put science behind the horrors of what he experienced.

“She took off my clothes,” Mulder recalls, looking away shamefully. He’s half-afraid she’ll ask him why he ever trusted Diana, why he could let his guard down around her. He couldn’t bear to hear Scully’s judgment around this. “She, uh, she asked if she could make me feel better, in a way only she knew how. She took her clothes off, and she tried, but I told her no. After that, I have no memory, except of waking up to a message from Skinner the next morning that you were demanding a transfer. Fucking shock of my life.”

He stares down at her hands, waiting for the judgment, the why did you trust that woman, Mulder? But when she remains silent, he finally looks up at her.

She has tears running down her cheeks.

“Mulder.”

In that one word, he knows everything he needs to know. That she doesn’t blame him, that she could never blame him for something like this. That all she feels is horror and guilt and despair and anger for what happened to him. That she will offer him only compassion and kindness and understanding and support.

“Mulder,” she repeats, licking her lips and battling for composure, “are you sure she didn’t—do anything?”  

“I’m sure,” he answers resolutely, and he is.

“I saw her sitting naked on top of you,” Scully says breathlessly. She sounds like she’s going to throw up. “I saw her—”

“I’m okay, Scully,” he promises her. “She went too far with me, but she didn’t go that far. She listened when I told her no. I think—I think her plan was to lower my defenses and see if I’d reciprocate. I don’t ever think her plan was to truly force herself on me.”

He hears a hiccup and looks up to see tear tracks streaming down Scully’s cheeks hard and fast. She buries her face in her hands and sobs.

“Oh my god, oh my god,” she cries to herself, the words tumbling out of her over and over again. “She assaulted you,” she tells him through her tears, and he nods.

“And I left you for it,” she moans. He can feel the anguish hanging thickly in the air.  

“You believed what you saw, Scully, which is all I’ve ever asked you to do,” he says as gently as possible, a wound that he didn’t know existed now beginning to heal. After thinking for so many months that he fucked this up, how badly he just needed her to hear his story, how badly he just needed her to love him through it.

He reaches towards her gently and brushes her kneecap and she falls into him, careful of his wounded shoulder.

“You didn’t deserve any of that,” she breathes into his hair, holding him against her chest like a protective mother. “You let me think . . . for months . . . .”

“You wouldn’t let me explain,” he reminds her patiently. “You shut me out, you didn’t want to hear it. I wrote you a letter—”

“I tore it up,” she whispers, horror in her voice. “I didn’t think there was any possible way it could have been something other than what I saw. Why didn’t you insist I hear you out?”

He swallows, brushing the nape of her neck, fingering the ends of her long hair tenderly. “I needed you to be ready to hear it. I didn’t want to—to share it . . . .”

She kisses his neck soothingly. “You didn’t want to share it when I full of anger towards you. You needed the me that has always been on your side, no matter what.” She pulls back. “You were afraid what I would think.”

He nods and a look passes between them. “Fucking terrified, Scully.”

She presses her forehead into his, cupping his cheeks. If she notices the tears gathering at his lashes, she makes no mention of them. “I am so sorry, Mulder. For what she did to you and for what I did to you.”

He breathes out slowly, releasing months’ worth of tension and fear. “Thank you,” he finally says.

She presses her lips to his forehead and his mind finally goes quiet.   

Chapter Text

Scully

Scully feels sick whenever she looks at Mulder. Regret—weighty, bone-deep regret—slumps her shoulders and brings hot, angry tears to her eyes every few minutes. She lost Mulder, blamed him, turned her back on him . . . because of Diana. Because of something horrifying that woman did to him.

There’s no escaping the hard truth: she left Mulder because Diana assaulted him.  

He seems to note her self-flagellation because he takes her hand in his and squeezes.

“You didn’t know,” he assures her, ever the mind-reader, bringing her head to rest on his shoulder.

“I still want to kill her,” she breathes furiously. “She hurt you and manipulated you, and—”

“And she stole four months from our lives,” he reminds her, and she feels their combined anger growing and building like a storm swell.

Her eyes burn into his and he has the look of a starving man, a desperate man. His lips are on hers before she can blink. She opens her mouth to him ravenously, letting him take from her whatever he needs.

“This okay?” she manages to ask as he kisses her face, as his lips drag from her chin down to her collarbone. “You okay?” He deserves to be asked.

“Missed you so bad,” is all he can manage, and he threads his hands through her hair, cupping her face in his. “She doesn’t get to steal anything else from us.”

His kisses are hard and bruising, domineering, almost brutal things. She responds gently but eagerly, letting him run his hands up and down her bare thighs and underneath her t-shirt, lets him touch what he hasn’t touched in months.

Only when he winces in pain does she still his hands. Breath leaves his lungs heavily and she knows he wants everything from her, and now, but he is too injured for this to continue today.

“You need to rest, Mulder,” she lectures as kindly as possible, trying to convey through her expression that she still wants him, still wants to do this with him.

He relents with a heavy sigh, his eyes shutting her out momentarily. When he opens his eyes, the burning fire in them has faded, replaced now with that boyish affection he seems to hold only for her.

They spend the afternoon resting. Scully tries her hand at hunting but comes up empty, finding herself too distracted and jittery for the task. They end up splitting half of a stale granola bar they find buried in the bottom of Mulder’s backpack.  

At night, Scully reignites the fire and they hold each other, breath mingling, and Scully finally digs up the courage to ask him what he wants.

“Do you want to report her?” she asks quietly, shifting nervously in his arms. She wants him to feel loved and supported. She needs him to know his decisions matter.

Mulder sighs heavily and she feels rather than sees him shake his head. “What do you want, Scully?”

“It doesn’t matter what I want,” Scully replies, thinking that if she had her way, Diana would face prison time for what she did to him. “You’re the one who gets to decide.”

Mulder presses his lips to the crown of her hair and she gives him space to think. Minutes seem to tick by but she remains quiet, letting that beautiful mind work itself out. When he finally speaks, his voice is confident, calm. “I want to forget about it and get back to normal with you. She stole enough from us. Let’s not waste more time on her.”

She agrees with a quiet murmur, because she will always respect him and his choices. But as she falls asleep, her mind fills with visions of punching Diana’s teeth out. She wakes with a gasp as her dreams turn vengeful, and Mulder hushes her back to sleep in the cocoon of his arms. She closes her eyes again and tries to sleep, but it never comes. 

Chapter Text

Mulder

They make it back to civilization in fits and starts. There’s a hospital stay for them both, followed by police questioning and the official opening of an investigation.

Scully is released from the hospital before him, but she visits, with a private little smile reserved only for him. The second Mulder is released, they return to their respective cities—he to D.C., she to some godawful city he can barely stand to think about—to rest.

Scully tells him she wants to take some time to herself to “think things over,” which Mulder tries not to take too personally. He knew better than to expect that things between them would magically improve after a rescue in the forest and a heated kiss. But still, it stings that she didn’t immediately want to follow him back to D.C., didn’t immediately mention the idea of transferring back to the X-Files.

Every day, she calls, but the conversations are stunted and short, and he wishes he could express to her physically just how much he wants to be with her, how much he thinks their ordeal in the forest changed the game for them both.

And yet she never tells him when she’s coming back.

Until one week after their ordeal, he’s lying on his couch thinking how he really needs to shower, when a knock sounds at his door.

The rhythmic ba-da-da-da-da is as familiar as the sound of his own breathing and he lurches from the couch so fast that he trips over his coffee table, cursing as he flops to the floor and strains his injured arm.

“Mulder?” he hears Scully’s worried cry from behind the door.

“Come in,” he shouts towards the door, trying to pull himself to standing before she comes into his apartment. He doesn’t have to wonder if she still has her key, because she’s bursting into the room like a woman on fire, rushing to his side with concern lacing her features.

“Are you okay?” she asks anxiously, and he huffs a laugh. “Your shoulder, Mulder, oh my god—"

“You might warn a guy that you’re on your way,” he teases her before squeezing her shoulder warmly. It’s as close to affection as he wants to get without knowing why Scully arrived and what she’s planning on saying to him. “Five days with barely a smoke signal, Scully, and now you’re here?”

“Is that okay?” she asks nervously, helping him to stand.

He shoots her an incredulous look. “More than,” he assures her. She gives him a shy smile, as if she isn’t quite sure how to act around him in this private space with him. She is dressed casually, in jeans and a sweater, but he notes the lack of color in her cheeks and dark circles around her eyes. He wonders if she’s been sleeping.

“You okay?” he immediately asks, frowning at her. “What uh, what’re you doing in town?”

She shrugs slightly and comes to perch on the arm of his couch. Gingerly, so as not to hurt his shoulder further, he takes a seat across from her on a chair.

“I came to get some affairs in order,” she says soberly, but he can’t help but note the hopeful smile behind her eyes.

“Oh yeah?” he asks with a roguish grin.

She blushes and ducks her head, then reaches out to squeeze his knee. “I didn’t want to stay away any longer,” she whispers, and he tugs her into his arms before he can think better of it.

She comes to him willingly, sliding onto his knees and threading her arms around his neck. Her smile is warm as she leans in to press her lips to his, and he smiles into her, opening his jaw to welcome her in.

His hands are in her hair and his tongue is down her throat by the time she gently pushes him away, sending him a slight shake of the head that signals to him it’s not happening tonight.

“Fair enough, Scully,” he teases, ducking his head to plant a kiss to her neck, “but I’m going to woo you back to my bed soon enough.”

“You will,” she confirms with a mischievous glint in her eyes, and he’s half-hard from her comment alone.

They order in a pizza and sit cuddled under a blanket together to watch a movie, something Mulder can hardly pay attention to because of the way Scully smells, of the way she feels pressed against him. He steals kisses when he can but eventually she falls asleep, and he wonders how long she’s been in town and whether she has anywhere else to say.

It’s after midnight when he rouses her. “Hey, Scully,” he whispers in her ear, and she mumbles a question.

“You spending the night? Want to migrate this thing to the bed?”

“Mhm,” she responds, blinking open her eyes. In the dim light of the T.V., he sees her cheeks take on a hint of red. “Was hoping I could stay here for a few days, actually. If that’s okay.”

A smile spreads across his face. “It’s a dream come true, baby,” he grins, and she places a hand to his chest tenderly, then trips her thumb up to his lips, brushing them affectionately.

“Thank you,” she murmurs as he leans down to plant a kiss to her sleep-warm lips.

“I’m going to hop in the shower really quick, care to join?” he asks against her mouth. He knows she’ll say no but he doesn’t anticipate the way her eyes cloud over or her body starts to stiffen under his.

“Scully?” he asks quietly, leaning back and rubbing her arm encouragingly.

Fully awake now, she sits up and the blanket they were sharing falls off her shoulders.

“What’s going on?” he asks quietly when she doesn’t respond. It’s not like her to hide things from him, but she looks worried and he’s eager to get to the bottom of what’s bothering her.  “I was just kidding about the shower . . . .”

She flits her eyes to his. “I came back because I wanted to return to the X-Files,” she starts slowly, resting her hands in her lap. Her expression and posture read like she’s about to give a dissertation, but her fingers wring together nervously. Something is very wrong, and he didn’t catch on earlier. His heart starts to pick up the pace. What’s wrong with Scully?

“But I also need your help,” she whispers, voice full of despair. He reaches out a hand to still the anxious movement of her hands and her eyes rise to his.

“Anything,” he says simply, even as his heart beats triple time.

He watches the column of her throat as she swallows.

“I need—” she pauses, avoiding his gaze. He squeezes her hands reassuringly. “I haven’t been able to—I can’t—the shower. The bathroom—” Her breath rushes out quickly and her cheeks color instantly.

“The shower?” he asks, not quite following.

She pulls her hands away from him. “No, it was stupid—”

“No,” he interjects, grabbing for her arm and stilling her. She glances at him nervously. “What I mean is, I want to help you. Just—can you give some more details?” Off her nervous look, he smiles. “It’s just me, Scully. You can tell me anything.”

At that, her expression softens and she sighs. “I haven’t been able to get in the bath since—since the river,” she explains quietly. “Showers are a little better, but it’s all I can do to manage to get in and out without . . .” She shrugs, going silent.  

He blows out a long breath, thinking back to her ordeal and kicking himself for not checking in with her before this moment. He should have known that her trauma in the river would have caused some lingering effects.

“Oh, Scully,” he murmurs, tugging her forward and gathering her to his chest.

She is stiff in his arms, which he knows to expect from her once she starts to exhibit vulnerability, but he wants to help her relax.

“I think I have an idea,” he tells her. “Do you trust me?”

She blows out a long breath, every fiber in her being relaxing. She nods. “I need help,” she tells him again.

“Then let me help you.”

Chapter Text

Scully

She watches warily as Mulder steps into the steamy shower, clothed only in his boxers, hissing as the hot water makes contact with his skin. He’d suggested started with the shower as a way to baby-step her way into sinking down into a full tub of water. He’d also suggested joining her for both parts, promising that he would keep his hands to himself, that this foray into healing wouldn’t involve sexual touch.

She doesn’t know, frankly, if she’s ready for a sexual encounter with him yet. As much as she’s desperate for things to return to normal now that they’ve sorted Diana Fowley’s involvement in their separation, she knows she’s still reeling from her experience. Logically, she needs time to heal. Physically, however, it’s hard to watch a mostly-naked Mulder dripping wet and beckoning her to join him, and not feel tempted.

Dressed in her sports bra and underwear, she raises a hand and catches his fingers with her own, feeling the spray of the shower against her wrist and arms. The feeling of water on her skin starts up an immediate chain reaction of nausea and terror and she freezes up, becoming rigid at the end of his hold.

Immediately sensing her hesitation, Mulder doesn’t react, but merely catches her eye, holding her gaze steadfastly.

“’S just me, Scully,” he murmurs over the sound of the shower, and she nods, clenching his fingers in her own. She doesn’t want him to see her this weak; she really hates that he’s watching her live out her fear, but she doesn’t know what other choice she has. Not showering for the next seventy years is out of the question.

She takes a step forward, stepping up and into the spray. Mulder quickly turns the shower head so it isn’t spraying in their faces but rather at the wall, and she sighs in relief as steam fills the space between them.

“You doing okay?” he asks calmly, his low, gravelly voice pure heaven in this tortured hell of her existence.

She nods, swallowing tightly. She isn’t quite okay, but she can be logical.

“I’m just in the shower,” she says out loud, and he nods encouragingly, not even a hint of amusement on his face. “I’m just standing in your shower, and we’re in our underwear, and I’m safe.”

“That’s right,” he agrees, grabbing a bar of soap. “Would you like to clean up?” A slight grin catches on his face. “No pressure from me, of course.”

She finds herself smiling wackily back at him, at the absurdity of them, of this situation. “I would,” she says, taking the slippery bar from him. Their fingers brush and she suds up the bar between her hands, then begins running her hands across her body, trying as hard as possible not to make it sensual.

But her eyes are locked with Mulder’s, and she can tell he’s doing his very best not to let his eyes slip to watch her hands roving her body.

She’s not getting quite clean per se, since she doesn’t want to take off all her clothes, but she feels better when the warm, familiar smell of Mulder’s soap fills the room.

“Smells good,” she murmurs to herself, but Mulder’s face softens slightly, and it’s charming to watch how much he enjoys her compliments.

“You ready for the water?” he asks when she’s sudsy all over, and she bites her lip, meeting his eyes nervously.  

A change overcomes him, a sudden visceral type of arousal blooming in his eyes. “Oh, don’t do that,” he whispers, want and need rumbling deep in his chest.

“What?” she asks, crinkling her brow, confused by the sudden turn of events. She’s still trying to decide if she wants him to turn the water back on her.

“Please don’t bite your lip, Scully,” he says, “this is hard enough.” Then he steps closer, reaching above her to grab the spout for the shower spray. “You ready?”

She hesitates a second too long and his hand falls instantly, the years of trust between them cementing their ability to silently communicate.

“Not yet,” she whispers, and it’s too quiet to be heard over the sound of the shower, but he nods gently.

“Tell me when you’re ready.”

More than anything right now, she wishes she didn’t have to do this. She wishes she could step out of the shower and never have to face the feeling of water running over her body, of water spraying her face, of water drenching her clothes or making it impossible to breathe.

Logically, she knows she can’t get hurt in this shower, not with Mulder. She knows that she is safe, but she needs to feel it. Physically feel it, feel the safety and security etched on her skin. She needs to assure her body that she is okay.  

It gives her an idea, and instead of telling him to continue, she turns around slowly, then presses her back to his chest, pulling his arm around her waist tightly. Closing her eyes, she nods against the safety of his arms. There is no place safer in the entire world; nothing bad can happen to her in Mulder’s arms.   

“Ready.” And she is.

She feels him take a deep breath, then the spray is shooting out over them both. She turns her head slightly to avoid a direct hit to the face and she nuzzles into his collarbone.

A strong hand slinks up her stomach and past her breasts to find her cheek, and he presses her face up to his, where he captures her lips in a kiss.

It takes her aback for just a moment and then she is kissing him back, feeling dopamine and serotonin curl into her brain and settle like cats as Mulder’s hands roam her body, touching her gently and reverently and safely.  

She presses into him hard, relishing the feeling of the warm water on her body and the hard, growing length of him at her back. All thoughts of the river leave her mind, replaced with the sensation of Mulder’s strength and tenderness.

“Oh my god,” he says suddenly, yanking away from her and shoving the showerhead back off them.

She grabs hold of the shower curtain for balance as she twists around, shocked by the unexpected absence of him.

He’s gasping for breath as he rakes his hands across his face. “Oh my god, Scully, I’m so sorry—” he manages before he drops his head against the back of the shower wall and curses. “That was so fucked up—”

“What?” she asks in surprise, taking a step closer to him. “Mulder.” She catches his arm and tugs until he meets her eyes, his own full of chagrin and self-hatred. “Mulder, it was okay. It—I liked it.”

She smiles at him, trying to offer what she can of comfort, but she knows he still feels like he’s messed something up.

They reach an unspoken truce, each retreating to a different corner of the shower, and silently decide to continue with the shower as-planned.

He helps her with the shampoo and she forgoes conditioner because he doesn’t have any. All the while, he stands primly in front of her, not touching her, even as his erection strains through his boxers.

But she can’t stand it; she hates the feeling of him holding back on her. She twists and lifts, reaching for the shower spray, and turns it back on them. Then, with a determined look, she calls his name, demanding his full attention.

“Mulder.”

His eyes grab hers.

And then she tugs at her bra, yanking it over her head, letting the water pepper her back before taking a deep breath and removing her underwear. Mulder steps forward before she’s finished, helping her balance as she steps out one leg at a time.

“This okay?” she makes sure to ask as she touches the waistband of his boxers, making certain she has his full, enthusiastic consent before tugging them down his legs and helping him step through.

And then she stretches for him, meeting his lips with his in a searing wet kiss. He reaches between them and cups her ass, driving her into his erection. It is so opposite the torment she experienced in the river; it is bliss and pleasure and nothing close to pain.

“Bath,” she manages to whisper against his lips, “I want to try the bath.” The idea of riding him in the bathtub, of water sloshing around them as she grinds down on him, is killing her. She needs it now.  

He mumbles a yes and they trip out of the shower together, each of them too caught up in kissing to bother turning off the spray or plugging the tub.

She’s about to push him away so she can start the bath when they hear his phone ring.

“Ignore it,” she whispers to him, and he nods his agreement, reaching up to pinch her nipple just the way she likes it.

She’s about to call it and ride him on top of the toilet seat when the phone starts ringing a second time. They ignore it again, although their kisses diminish in passion, but by the third time the phone starts up, they pull away, realizing they can’t ignore the ringing much longer.

“Be quick,” Scully mutters into his lips as she sends Mulder into the living room with a kiss.

“Wait for me,” he says with a roguish grin and a pointed look at the space between her legs.

She turns to start the bath just as she hears Mulder answer the phone.

Chapter Text

Mulder

The phone is ringing and his shoulder is screaming in pain, but Mulder ignores them both, focused on the feeling of Scully’s bare skin under his hands. When the phone rings a second and then third time, though, Scully meets his eyes and they both realize he can’t ignore it again.

“Be quick,” Scully says against his lips, and he asks her to wait as he takes one final glance at her naked body before jogging into the living room, bare-ass naked.

Skinner starts barking in his ear the moment he picks up the receiver.  

“Dammit, Mulder, answer your phone!” Skinner chides him, and Mulder mutters something about being busy as he slinks back into the bathroom, where Scully is running the bath. Her ass looks incredible from this angle.  

“Well, I hope you’re not too busy to hear that they’ve arrested someone in connection with Agent Scully’s kidnapping,” Skinner tells him roughly.

“Oh?” Mulder asks, his full attention suddenly snapping back to A.D. Skinner.

“It’s a man named Roger Enville,” Skinner explains over the phone.

“What does Skinner want?” Scully mouths.

Mulder runs a hand through his hair, suddenly on edge. “Roger Enville?” he repeats. Scully shakes her head; she doesn’t know the name either. “We, uh, we don’t know him.”

Skinner blows out a long sigh. “Is Agent Scully with you?”

“She is,” he says shortly, hoping Skinner doesn’t ask to speak with her.

There’s a short pause. “Can you and I speak privately, Agent Mulder?” his boss asks.

Mulder’s heart turns cold at the ask. “Yeah, uh, what’s going on?”

He motions to Scully that he’s returning to the living room, but he can feel her skeptical eyes following him as he retreats from the bathroom.

“Sir?” Mulder asks once he’s alone.

He hears his boss sigh, can almost see him taking off his glasses and rubbing his eyes with one hand in frustration. “Roger Enville confessed under questioning today to taking Agent Scully, but he claims he was just a follower. That there was a mastermind behind the entire plan, that he was just following orders.”

“And I’m guessing he gave you a name,” Mulder says, shifting anxiously from one foot to another, suddenly wishing he were wearing pants.

There’s a long sigh, followed by more eye-rubbing.

“Mulder, I don’t know how to tell you this. But Roger Enville named Diana Fowley as the puppet master behind Agent Scully’s kidnapping.”  

Chapter Text

Scully

Mulder tells her about Diana carefully, like she’s a grenade with a pin pulled. It doesn’t alleviate the rage or pain she feels when she hears about it. Diana Fowley was behind it all? Sure, Scully knows she never trusted the woman, but she didn’t quite predict kidnapping and water boarding to be in the woman’s wheelhouse.

After what she did to Mulder, though, it should come as no surprise.

What is a surprise is Skinner’s phone call one week later, telling them that Diana has been arrested and subsequently released following a “rigorous questioning” in which she vehemently denied all involvement in Scully’s kidnapping.

The lack of justice—for her and for Mulder—is what really does it.

So she packs her rage and disgust and anger and disbelief and horror and pain and confusion into her purse and tells Mulder she’ll see him after work.

And then she drives.

Out of the Hoover Building, past the buildings she sees every day, and into a part of town she doesn’t have much reason to frequent. The apartments are posh but Scully knows the people who live in them don’t actually live here, their transient souls dipping into and out of D.C. as they fly in and out to make nefarious business deals and go back to some home in some other part of the world.

Scully strides up to the door of an apartment she’s never been to and begins to call up memories. They flood her brain like a drug, fueling her rage. She remembers being underwater and not being able to come up for air. She remembers seeing Mulder in bed with Diana. She remembers moving away from D.C. She remembers months of not speaking to her best friend, her favorite person, her lover. She remembers the pain on Mulder’s face when he told her what Diana had done.

She knocks. Ba-da-da-da-da.

She hears the clack of heels behind the door and steels herself.

When Diana swings open the door, the woman looks mildly surprised, then immediately concerned. Her eyebrows knit together in confusion.

“Can I help you, Agent Scully?” Her voice drips with disdain.

Mulder in bed with Diana. Mulder telling her about the assault. Can’t breathe underwater. Freezing water. Naked in the forest, injured in the woods.

She draws back her arm and lets her fist fly, clocking Diana across the face, hearing the satisfying crunch of her nose breaking.

Blood sprays onto the floor and all over Diana’s pretty silk blouse.  

When Diana’s eyes lift in outrage, Scully takes a step over the threshold, shoving Diana and her bleeding nose against the door with a firm elbow.

“I know what you did to us,” she grits out violently, spit spraying and eyes burning holes into Diana’s, “and if you ever touch me or Mulder again, I’ll throw you in the river and drown you myself, you selfish, disgusting, useless son of a bitch!”

Scully shoves Diana back once more for good measure, then releases her, straightens her shoulders, and turns on her heel.

As she walks back to her car, her fist burns with justice.

Chapter Text

Mulder

He notices it immediately: red and purple splotches across four of her knuckles. Scully’s face gives away nothing when she catches him staring. Off his bewildered look, she just shrugs, tucking her hands in her sleeves to shield them from further scrutiny.  

“What happened?” he asks non-judgmentally, trying hard to remain curious and not concerned.

Her blue eyes flicker to his and he sees chagrin there, but also pride.

Diana.

“So . . . you saw Diana, I take it?” he asks through a hard swallow.

Scully licks her lips carefully. “I saw her,” she confirms with a nod.

“And you . . . punched her lights out?” He almost smiles, but he has a sickly feeling in his stomach.

 Scully’s lips pinch together tightly. “I—she . . .” She huffs and her composure breaks. “She deserved far worse,” she snaps, “than a broken nose.”

“You broke her nose?” he asks, stupefied, imagining the force it must have taken to manage such a feat.  

Scully rolls her eyes dramatically. “It wasn’t a measly little girl punch, Mulder.”

“And I never said it was,” he says quickly. “But hell, Scully, you could get arrested for that.”

She shifts under his gaze, dropping her eyes to the floor. “I know.” Her eyes flicker up to his hopefully. “Will she report me?”

Mulder thinks about it a while, considers whether Diana would be dumb enough to poke out her neck, knowing what kind of testimony Scully could provide as to Diana’s own wrongdoing. Finally, he shakes his head. “I guess we’ll have to wait and see.”

The corners of Scully’s mouth tick up slightly and she seems appeased by that alone. “If I do go to jail, promise to visit me?” she asks, her tone a little lighter.

“Wouldn’t be the first time you ended up in the cell block,” he says, remembering a time long ago when she stood in contempt of Congress for him.

That brings out a full-blown smile and she steps into his arms, burrowing right under his chin.

“My little jailbird,” he says fondly, planting a kiss to the top of her head. “I’m glad you defended yourself. Did it feel good?”

She props her chin on her chest and sighs. “Yes, it did,” she says honestly. “But I wasn’t just defending myself, Mulder.”

He swallows as her eyes burn.

“I was defending you,” she says, “because I love you.”

It is a balm to hear it after all these months apart. He dips his head and presses his lips to hers softly, then firmly. She responds in kind, weaving her hands up his neck and into his hair, gripping tightly to draw him down into her.  He hears her ask him if he’s sure, if he wants this, and he responds with fiercer kisses until she demands a yes from him.

They go slowly, savoring each minute, occasionally pausing to meet the other’s eye as if to ask is this real?

After a while, clothes begin to fall to the floor, skin and muscle are unveiled, and they finally collapse onto the couch, where Scully rides him slowly, deliberately. Their gazes remain locked as they each come, one after the other, and when they are finished, Mulder tugs a blanket across her shoulders.

“I love you,” he whispers against her auburn hair, and she twists in his arms to smile up at him. “My little jailbird.”

“Oh, Mulder,” she laughs throatily, pressing her forehead into his chest.

They fall asleep together on the couch, savoring the other’s warmth and comforting presence. It’s as if they already know, more intimately than experience can stress, that they will always need each other, that nothing should ever be allowed to drive them apart.

Especially now.

Because in one week, when Diana mysteriously vanishes, when her apartment is stripped bare and her belongings disappear in the night, they will hold each other close. Any possibility of justice—of true justice—has evaporated with her disappearance.

It is devastating.  

“But we’re still here,” Mulder reminds Scully as she sobs angrily in his arms, her sharp fingernails leaving marks in his skin. “You and me, Scully,” he whispers against her hair, pulling her into him as tightly as he can, “we’re still here, and we have each other.”