Under A Juniper Tree
SUMMARY: amyhit suggested "Five Times Scully Scares Mulder." I started writing the fic, but this was the only segment of it that came out how I wanted. It's a touch longer than a drabble. Both the title of the story and the mantra of Scully's roommate come from T.S. Eliot's Ash Wednesday. Thanks to scarletbaldy for looking this over on vacation.
***
It had been his idea to go for a run. Get her out of the house, away from the smell of funeral flowers and baby's breath, and pump some sea air into her Navy brat lungs. She was clearly fraying around the edges, her face still pinched from cancer and grief. The squalling of baby Matthew was like a klaxon and Mulder noticed that it didn't make her flinch anymore. But her jaw was still tight when she held him.
Scully stands on the corner with him, leaning against a lamp post as she screws the cap back on her water bottle. She wears Tara's old UCLA sweatshirt and a pair of leggings that bag at the knees. Even San Diego mornings are cold in the nascent days of the year, and Scully is still more fragile than she cares to admit. Her rapid breath puffs in little clouds, her thin chest rising and falling quickly below the embroidered fleece. She tucks the water bottle back into the pouch on the front of the sweatshirt, feeling marsupial and hollow.
"You okay?" Mulder asks her, not liking the bright color too high in her cheeks. He watches her furtively for nosebleeds, as is his habit.
She wipes at her damp forehead with her sleeve and shrugs.
"We'd better turn around," he says, consulting his watch as though it is an objective authority to which he can appeal for a ruling. "Showering before the flight home would be the decent thing to do, and you still haven't packed."
She shrugs again. She has no opinions on trivial things right now. White coffin with the white satin lining, the ivory colored peonies, and throw in a few dozen of the little tea roses. These are the last decisions she can remember making. She went for the run because Mulder suggested it. She wore the shirt because her mother told her to. She drank water because her body demanded it.
Mulder glances at her sidelong as she tightens the laces of her running shoes. The flatness of her affect chews at him, seeming more like scar tissue than a healing wound. She is turning into a chilly white thing he doesn't like to look at. But there is nothing to say, no platitudes to offer, and she'd made it abundantly clear at the hospital that he was riding shotgun on this one. He just wants to get her home where she can ease back into normality. Maybe talk to that Kosseff woman again.
She straightens up, staring past him, an unfocused expression on her face, and he sees her thumb running over her fingernails. It's her give when she's anxious and he has not mentioned it because if he did, she'd tuck it away into a dark corner of her labyrinthine soul.
He turns to see what has captured her interest, expecting a small blonde girl, but there's nothing there of obvious note. Her mouth moves, and there is a curl of red hair stuck to her dry lower lip. He leans forward to catch what she's saying, and picks up the scent of Bill and Tara's fabric softener, Bill and Tara's shampoo.
"Teachustocareandnotocare," she murmurs, the words running together and scarcely louder than a breath. It was the mantra of her roommate in med school, an English major who had found her true calling in diseases of the endocrine system. Scully's gone away inside her head now, years back, to the first time she held a dead baby. The rubbery ribs hadn't required a bone saw. She'd sliced through them with a scalpel and, with infinite care, cut the fragile blue-lipped creature to pieces. She'd printed the chubby fingers, zipped the bag back up, and carried the small bundle to the fridge. A child's corpse is the heaviest weight, but one can learn to bear it. One can learn to bear anything.
"Scully," Mulder says gently, and taps her shoulder.
There is no reply, but her right thumb twists into the cuticle of her ring finger and tears away a tiny strip of skin. If it hurts her, she does not show it. A bead of blood rises and then spills down the nail.
He repeats her name, louder this time, and penetrates the mist behind her eyes.
She blinks dazedly. "Hmm?"
"We need to get going."
"Yeah," she says. She turns from him and begins to run, avoiding the places where tree roots have heaved the concrete upwards. Dead branches clutter the sidewalk and crunch beneath her feet. Her hair escapes the elastic band, bouncing behind her, and he remembers when she used to wear it long around her girlish face, chasing nightmares through the woods.
He catches up, matching his loping stride to hers, and they run down streets of identical houses. They breathe hard, hearts racing and feet hitting the pavement in a steady rhythm. A flock of blackbirds startles at their approach, rising up in a flurry of wings and then wheeling through the pallid sky before settling on a series of telephone wires. They call to one another in their hoarse voices and Mulder finds their group consciousness unsettling. He runs beneath them, hoping they will not stir.
Scully rounds the corner ahead of him, her lungs burning with the morning air. She imagines them full of sand, imagines herself drowning in it, and she stumbles and coughs. She recovers before he reaches her and is off again, wanting Mulder to go away. He needs to leave her alone because she knows that she has it within her to take her comfort in his bed and the warmth of his living body. She knows that if she does, she'll leave his sheets cold and empty before he wakes. She will steal his breath like a cat.
She crushes the thought like an empty soda can, running miles past it until she reaches her brother's house and slows to walk up the steps. The support post of the porch has flaking paint, but she leans against it anyway. Her legs are trembling from running too far and too fast and Christ, here's Mulder looking at her like a teacup he's accidentally smashed to the floor.
"I'm going to take a shower and then pack," she informs him, giving him her back as she walks to the door. The brass knob is cold against her palm and, when she turns it, she feels Mulder's hand on her elbow.
"Scully, when we get back to DC you should consider talking to someone about all of this." He feels better for having said it, for letting her know he sees her pain, but, at the same time, not intruding on it. He's learning to navigate the jagged rocks of her coastline.
She pauses and turns to regard him, looking bemused. She thought he understood. "When we get back to DC," she says slowly, "none of this ever happened." There's a note of condescension in her voice.
He stares down at her, into Emily's dead blue eyes, and her face is the face of a stranger.
***
The End
***
It had been his idea to go for a run. Get her out of the house, away from the smell of funeral flowers and baby's breath, and pump some sea air into her Navy brat lungs. She was clearly fraying around the edges, her face still pinched from cancer and grief. The squalling of baby Matthew was like a klaxon and Mulder noticed that it didn't make her flinch anymore. But her jaw was still tight when she held him.
Scully stands on the corner with him, leaning against a lamp post as she screws the cap back on her water bottle. She wears Tara's old UCLA sweatshirt and a pair of leggings that bag at the knees. Even San Diego mornings are cold in the nascent days of the year, and Scully is still more fragile than she cares to admit. Her rapid breath puffs in little clouds, her thin chest rising and falling quickly below the embroidered fleece. She tucks the water bottle back into the pouch on the front of the sweatshirt, feeling marsupial and hollow.
"You okay?" Mulder asks her, not liking the bright color too high in her cheeks. He watches her furtively for nosebleeds, as is his habit.
She wipes at her damp forehead with her sleeve and shrugs.
"We'd better turn around," he says, consulting his watch as though it is an objective authority to which he can appeal for a ruling. "Showering before the flight home would be the decent thing to do, and you still haven't packed."
She shrugs again. She has no opinions on trivial things right now. White coffin with the white satin lining, the ivory colored peonies, and throw in a few dozen of the little tea roses. These are the last decisions she can remember making. She went for the run because Mulder suggested it. She wore the shirt because her mother told her to. She drank water because her body demanded it.
Mulder glances at her sidelong as she tightens the laces of her running shoes. The flatness of her affect chews at him, seeming more like scar tissue than a healing wound. She is turning into a chilly white thing he doesn't like to look at. But there is nothing to say, no platitudes to offer, and she'd made it abundantly clear at the hospital that he was riding shotgun on this one. He just wants to get her home where she can ease back into normality. Maybe talk to that Kosseff woman again.
She straightens up, staring past him, an unfocused expression on her face, and he sees her thumb running over her fingernails. It's her give when she's anxious and he has not mentioned it because if he did, she'd tuck it away into a dark corner of her labyrinthine soul.
He turns to see what has captured her interest, expecting a small blonde girl, but there's nothing there of obvious note. Her mouth moves, and there is a curl of red hair stuck to her dry lower lip. He leans forward to catch what she's saying, and picks up the scent of Bill and Tara's fabric softener, Bill and Tara's shampoo.
"Teachustocareandnotocare," she murmurs, the words running together and scarcely louder than a breath. It was the mantra of her roommate in med school, an English major who had found her true calling in diseases of the endocrine system. Scully's gone away inside her head now, years back, to the first time she held a dead baby. The rubbery ribs hadn't required a bone saw. She'd sliced through them with a scalpel and, with infinite care, cut the fragile blue-lipped creature to pieces. She'd printed the chubby fingers, zipped the bag back up, and carried the small bundle to the fridge. A child's corpse is the heaviest weight, but one can learn to bear it. One can learn to bear anything.
"Scully," Mulder says gently, and taps her shoulder.
There is no reply, but her right thumb twists into the cuticle of her ring finger and tears away a tiny strip of skin. If it hurts her, she does not show it. A bead of blood rises and then spills down the nail.
He repeats her name, louder this time, and penetrates the mist behind her eyes.
She blinks dazedly. "Hmm?"
"We need to get going."
"Yeah," she says. She turns from him and begins to run, avoiding the places where tree roots have heaved the concrete upwards. Dead branches clutter the sidewalk and crunch beneath her feet. Her hair escapes the elastic band, bouncing behind her, and he remembers when she used to wear it long around her girlish face, chasing nightmares through the woods.
He catches up, matching his loping stride to hers, and they run down streets of identical houses. They breathe hard, hearts racing and feet hitting the pavement in a steady rhythm. A flock of blackbirds startles at their approach, rising up in a flurry of wings and then wheeling through the pallid sky before settling on a series of telephone wires. They call to one another in their hoarse voices and Mulder finds their group consciousness unsettling. He runs beneath them, hoping they will not stir.
Scully rounds the corner ahead of him, her lungs burning with the morning air. She imagines them full of sand, imagines herself drowning in it, and she stumbles and coughs. She recovers before he reaches her and is off again, wanting Mulder to go away. He needs to leave her alone because she knows that she has it within her to take her comfort in his bed and the warmth of his living body. She knows that if she does, she'll leave his sheets cold and empty before he wakes. She will steal his breath like a cat.
She crushes the thought like an empty soda can, running miles past it until she reaches her brother's house and slows to walk up the steps. The support post of the porch has flaking paint, but she leans against it anyway. Her legs are trembling from running too far and too fast and Christ, here's Mulder looking at her like a teacup he's accidentally smashed to the floor.
"I'm going to take a shower and then pack," she informs him, giving him her back as she walks to the door. The brass knob is cold against her palm and, when she turns it, she feels Mulder's hand on her elbow.
"Scully, when we get back to DC you should consider talking to someone about all of this." He feels better for having said it, for letting her know he sees her pain, but, at the same time, not intruding on it. He's learning to navigate the jagged rocks of her coastline.
She pauses and turns to regard him, looking bemused. She thought he understood. "When we get back to DC," she says slowly, "none of this ever happened." There's a note of condescension in her voice.
He stares down at her, into Emily's dead blue eyes, and her face is the face of a stranger.
***
The End