Dichotomous
by Aloysia Virgata 

Email: aloysia.virgata@yahoo.com
Rating: Explicit
Season 11


Summary:  A light beams from the porch of the little house; 
a beacon in the night.

Their cars are conspicuous in the nearly empty parking lot, 
which magnifies the free-floating uncertainty. What passed 
between them in the church bears a sacramental weight, but 
the practical realities must be addressed. Scully coughs 
and kicks at a crumbling speed bump.

Two cars, two choices. Two lives, two choices.

"So," Mulder says, shifting his weight from one foot to the 
other. He cleans his glasses on his jacket.

"So," she echoes, looking about. She has felt furtive again 
since the little drones followed them, uncomfortable 
vocalizing even small bits of information. Always heard, 
always watched. So much of why she demanded more for 
William. Of why she had fled.

"I said a prayer, but I don't know how this works," Mulder 
reminds her. "Do we await divine intervention?"

Scully smiles at him, reaches out to take his hand. She 
doesn't look around first. "I was hoping I could get a 
lift."

He squeezes her fingers. "You going my way, Red?"

"That's how it ends," she says.

***

They're three miles out before he speaks. "You said you 
wanted to come home, to have a life and family with me. But 
what does that mean, Scully? What can that mean for us?"

These are the prosaic details that always trip her up. "I 
don't really know. For starters, I'm listing my hell-house 
as soon as the insurance claims are processed from the 
fire."

"Supported. That place is creepy, and I feel that your 
fridge takes a flippant tone."

"So I'll need a new address."

Mulder smiles at her with gentle eyes. "You're still on the 
title. No need to wait. Or ask."

"I don't want to wait. But of course I had to ask."

He lets that pass. "And the rest of it? A family? We had a 
version of this conversation not terribly long ago, and I'm 
still not clear on the resolution. I mean, based on current 
data, unprotected sex isn't going to result in any 
surprises, though I'm happy to continue field testing."

She smiles, presses her open palm to the chilly window. Her 
reflection ghosts along the landscape. "You're a hero to 
the scientific community."

"But seriously. What did you mean by a family? Are you 
talking IVF again, Scully? You said William was a miracle, 
but I still think that ship had something to do with it." 
He puts his blinker on and changes lanes for the highway 
ramp.

The ship, the ship... Africa and Antarctica and Mulder's 
captors and her father sailing in and out. There are pieces 
of her scattered through the seas and stars; it's no wonder 
she can't stay still. Scully stares at the fabric lining of 
the cabin roof as though it may hold answers, then rubs her 
face with her hands. "I don't know."

"Okay," he says.

Silence for a mile, her favorite retreat. But she promised.

Scully rests her hand on his thigh. "Maybe William reaches 
out to me and we can offer him the security we couldn't at 
first. Maybe it's just you and me and a Christmas puppy. I 
don't know, maybe we take in some other kid whose parents 
couldn't give them the life they deserved; I have no real 
plan. Not IVF, that's not... no. But I want the banality of 
laundry and groceries and lawnmowers. With you."

He strokes her knuckles with his thumb, looking ahead. "So 
your grand prayer boils down to undetermined domestic 
mediocrity with a nearly-retired crackpot pushing sixty?"

"I think that's always been my grand prayer. I just didn't 
know it." She doesn't dwell on all the time she has wasted. 
It feels like standing at the edge of a cliff.
"Is that why you whispered it," he teases. "Too ashamed?"

She closes her eyes for a beat, swallows hard. "Pull over," 
she orders.

He looks at her, shocked. "Scully, I was kidding, I -"

"Pull over."

He merges onto the shoulder, puts the car in park and turns 
his hazards on. "I'm sorry, I didn't-"

Scully unbuckles her seatbelt and turns to give him her 
full attention. His pupils are wide, irises a mossy green. 
"I whispered, Mulder, because speaking directly to God 
hasn't gotten me anywhere lately. You said you spoke to Him 
through me, and it seemed like a sentiment worth returning. 
I whispered to the one person I knew was listening." Her 
voice is raw, her throat achy, but she presses ahead with a 
wry smile. "I prayed to you, Saint Fox of the Long Shot, 
for my salvation."

His eyes shine and they burn her.

She wants to run. Run from the car, run from his eyes, down 
the highway into the protective cover of the dark. But she 
stays. She stays in the piercing silence.

"I can only give you sanctuary and unconditional love," he 
tells her at last. "You have to save yourself." He offers 
an apologetic frown.

Scully exhales another little demon, grateful that Mulder 
has promised nothing bold. "Then my prayer was answered," 
she says.

***

The gravel clatters up against the fenders as the car bumps 
down his - their - pitted driveway. A light beams from the 
porch of the little house; a beacon in the night. They 
haven't spoken since merging back onto the highway, just 
interlacing their fingers until they are white-knuckled and 
sore. Nick Cave has been playing in the background.   

Mulder turns the engine off, and they step out into the 
cricket noise and owl calls. The earth smells damp. Fecund.

Scully jams her hands in her pockets, cants her face to the 
broad sweep of the heavens.  "It's always so beautiful 
here, without the light pollution. I can see so many more 
stars."

Mulder walks around the car, rests his chin on the crown of 
her head. "Oh, no," he says wrapping his arms around her. 
"It's not the light pollution. I had extras brought in 
special for you."

She can almost believe him.

They stare up for a while, naming constellations, telling 
each other the myths behind them. Scully loves all the ways 
people make sense of the universe.

A chill wind comes, driving them up the steps. Scully 
reaches for her keys, yelping when she is scooped up in 
Mulder's arms. Her shoes dangle precariously from her toes, 
then drop to the floor with two solid thuds.

He fumbles at the lock, pushing the door open with his 
shoulder. "Welcome home," he says, and carries her over the 
threshold.

"Mulder," she says, arms about his neck. "Put me down."

He kicks the door shut. "I got this, presbyopia and all." 
Navigating around a pile of mail and a pair of discarded 
sneakers, lurching up the staircase. Her toes clip the 
balusters, but she says nothing.


"I used to do this all the time," Mulder huffs at the 
landing. "Hauling you around Antarctica, whatever."

She winces at a banged ankle. "All the time? Let's not be 
dramatic, John Wayne."

"Hush," he says.

Scully peers down the hallway when they make it to the 
second floor. This is her home again, this is their bedroom 
he's carrying her to. She has no car, she has no exit 
strategy. This is the last choice. Her universe keeps 
splitting to circle back here.

She rests her head against his chest.

Mulder drops her unceremoniously on the bed, stretches his 
shoulders and back out. "Time was I could bench press you."

"Time was," she says fondly, shrugging out of her jacket. 
"Mulder, the bed is made."

He looks sheepish. "Well, you got me used to it. I remember 
most days."

Her heart squeezes and expands.

"Anyway," he says. "Here we are." He sits next to her on 
the bed, bouncing slightly.

Scully crawls over, rests her head in his lap, facing his 
belly. The scent of him wraps around her, protective and 
comforting. She should have smudged her house with him, 
like sage smoke, to purge the ennui. She should have done 
so much.

Mulder twines his fingers through her hair, through her 
sharp bob, and she laughs again at his only just noticing.

"Laughing's a little harsh," he says, then twitches himself 
against her cheek.

"That is the opposite of sexy," she says, sitting up.

He frowns at his lap. "Years of pornography have assured me 
otherwise."

Scully shoves him, then wraps her arms around his bicep.

"I'm sorry I just noticed your haircut," he murmurs against 
her scalp. Maybe he really can hear her thinking.

"Oh," she says, tucking a strand behind her ear. "This old 
thing?"

He kisses the top of her zygomatic arch. "In the church, I 
had all these assumptions about you, about how you were 
feeling and your regrets and your beliefs, but I was 
totally wrong, Scully. I was projecting my own issues onto 
you. I just wonder what else I haven't seen."

"Don't be silly," she whispers.

"Get up," he says.

She presses her cheek more tightly against his arm. "Mmm, 
no."

He shakes her shoulder gently. "Scully, get up."

Scowling, she does, the floor chilly beneath her bare feet. 
"What?" she demands, her arms crossed. She sees them in the 
mirror above the dresser, sees her sharp white face and 
Mulder's spiky hair.

He sits at the edge of the bed with his knees apart. He 
hooks his fingers into her waistband, tugs her close.

"Mulder." She hears the huskiness in her own voice. The 
woman in the mirror has half-lidded eyes, and Scully turns 
so that they cannot look at each other.

Mulder puts his glasses on, takes his jacket off. He 
returns his hands to her hips.

Scully gazes down at him for a long moment. She is tensed, 
as though he really may be able to look inside her in some 
way. After another second of hesitation, she pulls her 
shirt over her head, stands before him in her bra and 
trousers. "Tell me what you see in me."

He slides his hands from her shoulders to her wrists. He 
touches the white rose of the gunshot wound on her belly. 
"Scars," he says. "And strength."

She takes a long, shivery breath through her nose. "I'm not 
whole, you understand. There are wounds in me that still 
bleed. I don't know if they can all heal. I need to know 
that you can accept that possibility."

His dips his forehead against her belly, and she furrows 
her nails into his hair. "Our needs exceed my grasp," he 
mumbles, his breath ticklish at her navel. "But I lit a 
candle for them. I meditated on them. And, as I said, I 
believe in you."

"A little extra light in the world is never a bad thing 
anyway," she says, tracing his earlobe.

"Wounds aren't always bad either," he says, and looks up. 
"They're where the light gets in."

Gooseflesh rises on her skin, though not on the cicatrix of 
Ritter's miscalculation. Her own miscalculation. She 
understands now how terrible eternity would be, and cups 
Mulder's face in her hands. Thumbs his temples, thinks of 
his wondrous brain having been exposed to Earth's corrosive 
air.

Scully pulls his glasses off. "I see you too," she says.

"I know." There is the sweetest sadness in his eyes.

She unfastens her trousers, letting them slip to the floor. 
In her bra and underwear, she climbs onto the bed, resting 
her head on the pillows. She wriggles beneath the blankets. 
"Lay down."

He does, stretching out on his side to face her. One 
forefinger traces her lips and she catches it in her teeth. 
He pulls it free to draw her eyes, the slope of her nose. 
"Someone should paint you," he says. "Like Botticelli or 
Sargent."

She blushes, pleased. Bites his finger again.

"Maybe I'll take up painting in my forthcoming retirement," 
he muses.

She unbuttons his shirt, pushes it open to plane her hands 
over his torso. His body radiates warmth, as it always has. 
His skin is the color of graham crackers.

Mulder shrugs out of his shirt. She kisses the place where 
she shot him, the tight pucker of tissue that mirrors her 
own. "I think that's when I fell in love with you," he 
says. "Not every woman will blow a hole through your soft 
tissue for your own safety."

"Good thing I'm a hell of a shot."

"Good thing I'm a fucking idiot." He strips the rest of his 
clothing off before joining her under the bedding.

Scully tucks her head beneath his chin, and he wraps his 
arms around her. She tangles her legs through his, trailing 
butterfly kisses along his neck. She sniffs him again, 
happy.

"Let's get a puppy when it's warmer," he suggests. "I'll 
install an invisible fence."

She imagines the entropic potential of this plan. "Mulder, 
I need to know now if you plan to get some pathetic, one-
eyed, three-legged, Charlie Brown Christmas Tree of an 
animal."

"Obviously."  he says, tracing circles at the small of her 
back.

She unhooks her bra and maneuvers out of it. Slips her 
underwear down.

Mulder draws her closer still, pressing her breasts against 
the heat of his chest. "You're very soft," he says. "I 
remember the first time I had my hands on you like this, I 
thought how soft you were."

"Even badasses have to moisturize." She strokes his nose.

He kisses her, arms around her waist. His tongue is hot and 
rough against her lips.

Incentive salience perks up her nucleus accumbens, drives 
her hips against his. Mulder shifts his weight and she's on 
her back, his knees parting her thighs.

"Hi," he says. His erection bumps her pubic bone.

She pokes it with a fingertip. "Hi."

He eases his body into hers, watching her watch him. Her 
skin feels like it's been rubbed down with sandpaper, her 
mechanoreceptors aflame. Scully sighs, raising her hips for 
a better angle. Mulder tips forward, his hands on either 
side of her shoulders. She locks her heels at his caudal 
spine.

"This is why we're good together too," he says into her 
neck. He tongues the hollows of her clavicles.

She murmurs assent, pushing her shoulders into the pillows; 
whispers nonsense and encouragement into his ear. Sweat 
slicks the places there their bodies touch and Scully, her 
hair damply tangled, kicks the comforter away. The cool air 
sharpens her.

His fingers between them and colors swim behind her 
eyelids, reds and golds and swirling black. Mulder's touch 
is practiced, insistent, and her thighs begin to tremble. 
She wants it to slow down, she wants to savor this more, 
then remembers she has nowhere else to be.

She prays to him again, and he answers that one too.

Mulder sucks hard at the tender skin beneath her ear, the 
fleshed bruised and branded. Scully, panting and sated, 
rakes her nails down his back and thinks of the countless 
times they've had sex in this bed. The times they've made 
love and and the times it was nothing more than self-
destructive fucking.

Mulder's eyes are closed, his shoulders straining. His hair 
brushes her forehead as he shudders, groaning. She strokes 
his neck, presses his weight against her. It wasn't the 
ship that made their son. It wasn't God. It was this, it 
was this.

Several moments pass, then Mulder rolls to the side, 
leaving her chilly and exposed. She burrows back under the 
blankets, against his chest. His heart drums against her 
and she remembers their roles reversed, his ear at her 
belly when William was inside it.

"I remember when we bought this house," she says. "The real 
estate agent was so confused that we even wanted it."

Mulder laughs, kisses her forehead. "She told me I owed you 
a new bathroom if I planned to make you move in."

"She asked if we planned to have kids," Scully recalls. 
"She said the third bedroom wasn't big enough." The 
question had gutted her, but she'd smiled through her 
careless shrug, said it would make good storage.

"There are lots of ways to make a house into a home," 
Mulder says.

Scully props herself up on one elbow, surveys the familiar 
landscape of Mulder's face. The terrain is more rugged now. 
"If I had to chastise a version of myself, it wouldn't be 
the woman who walked into your office. It would be the 
woman who walked out of your bed."

"You're here now," he says softly.

She smoothes his hair, rubs his stubble with her cheek. "Do 
you think he'll come back?"

"Yes," Mulder says, without hesitation. "He's his mother's 
son."