Visitor (9/13) by leiascully Email: leiascully@gmail.com Distribution: Ask, please Rating: T for non-explicit sexual situations and some swearing Categories: SRA Keywords: Mulder/Scully romance Spoilers: XF Revival speculation (spoilers through series and IWTB) Summary: Mulder tries to put his life back together after Scully leaves him. Disclaimer: The X-Files and all related characters are the property of Chris Carter, 1013 Productions, and Fox Studios. No profit is made from this and no infringement is intended. Author's Notes: I wasn't expecting to include Layla Harrison, but she walked right in and made herself at home. Stories from all fandoms are archived at http://archiveofourown.org/users/leiascully. + + + + 9 - Restoration Skinner calls, and Mulder only lets it ring once before he answers. "Sir," he says, just in case. "Congratulations, Agent Mulder," Skinner says. "Contingent on your recertification, you are once more a special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation." "Thank you, sir," Mulder says. "Cut the sir," Skinner grumbles. "This isn't business hours. We've known each other too damn long. Meet me at nine and I'll let you buy me a drink to celebrate." "Sounds good, Skinman," Mulder says, because he can't resist. Skinner grunts but lets it go. "Are you going to call Scully?" he asks. Mulder lets out a noisy breath. "Should I?" "Better she finds out from you," Skinner tells him. "Did something happen?" There were moments, in bed together, that Mulder thought she might move back in, and there were moments he was afraid she would walk out. He has flung open the windows of his life to let the light in, but there are still shadowy corners in his mind and in his heart, and thoughts that go bump in the night. "Nothing happened," he says, and that absolutely isn't true, but he isn't about to explain the rest of it to Skinner. "Then call her," Skinner says, and hangs up. Mulder stares at his phone. She needs time, she said, but surely they're still friends. Surely they can be colleagues again, if not partners. He pulls up his favorites (her, Skinner, his therapist) and taps her name. He gets her voicemail, which is something of a relief. "Hey, Scully," he says after the beep. "It's me. Uh, just wanted to let you know that Skinner called me tonight and said they're moving me back to active duty, so I guess I might see you around. We're going out for a drink if you want to drop by." She knows the bar. It's their usual. He's picked at the labels of a lot of beer bottles and watched the oak-and-amber light soften the lines of her face. He's distracted enough that he almost tells her he loves her, but he catches himself and hangs up. That isn't time. That isn't space, to remind her of how tightly they bound themselves together. He and Skinner have a couple of drinks, call each other Walter and Fox, and it's strange, but it's nice. God knows he knows how to compartmentalize, after all those years of quietly loving Scully and working with her too. At least with Skinner it isn't quite the same problem. They see each other off at a reasonable hour and Mulder goes home to his house, their house, and half-expects to see her sitting on the living room couch, working up a look that will pin him to the wall. But the place is empty in a comfortable way. No Scully. No intruders. Nothing has been disturbed. He has nothing to worry about. He climbs the stairs to go to bed and doesn't look for her hair or try to catch her scent lingering on the pillow. She isn't there, and that's all right; he's caught up in some moment of faith, listening to a voice singing in his heart. She will come back. They will be okay. They will not be the people they were before, but they will rebuild something new out of the fragments of their younger selves. They'll make new mistakes, have new fights, and he will relish every moment of it the way he never could in his thirties. He falls asleep just as he realizes she never called him back. + + + + He lets them put him through his paces. The Bureau psychologist reports with amusement that he seems much more stable now than he did the first time around, flipping back and forth between the pages of his inches-thick file of facts and figures. The sum of Fox Mulder, or at least his career, is barely contained by manila. He's a little rusty at the range, but it only takes a few practice sessions before he's remembered how to brace against the way the gun kicks. Now if only he can brace against the way his heart kicks when he thinks of working close to Scully again, he'll be invincible. He takes the stairs to make the trip last longer, breathing in the familiar scent of old carpet and bad coffee. Mulder is acutely aware of the way his new badge swings and clicks against his suit jacket. There is grey in the hair of the man in the photograph, and there are lines around his eyes, but he recognizes himself, at long last. "Welcome back," Skinner says, shaking his hand and offering him a genuine smile in defiance of the business hours rule. "Thank you, sir," he says. Skinner would probably be director by now if it weren't for the Mulder-and-Scully-shaped blotches on his record. He hopes Skinner knows that he appreciates that. The rest of it is deja vu all over again: training, reading. The heavy books of criminal codes have been phased out, and he misses them. Studying doesn't feel the same without the crackle of paper and the hefty weight of the law in his hands. Frequenting conspiracy message boards turns out to have had some purpose, though. He isn't as out of the loop as he expected to be. He's assigned to the Behavioral Analysis Unit, familiar old stomping grounds. He was hoping to be in the Hoover Building. Quantico feels like Scully's territory. She's made a name for herself in the Forensic Science Center; he hears admiring murmurs about her when he walks into the break room for coffee. Nobody seems to know him, and that's just fine. Every once in a while he gets a quizzical look, as if someone's trying to remember a song they heard on the radio last week, but that's it. He just comes to work and does his job, and he doesn't take anything home, and it feels good. It feels better than he thought it would. He was worried that the clouds would descend, the peculiar fog of intuition, and that he would find himself subsumed again in the murky minds of murderers. If he descends hand over hand into the darkness each day, he manages to climb out by the time he's reached the parking garage. When he gets home he runs, or cooks, or defrosts something, or reads. He's thinking of getting a dog. The house is still clean. He has his own desk, partitioned off from the others a little. Maybe one day he'll have his own office the way that Scully does - she's important enough to have space in both buildings, he thinks. He wonders if anyone uses the old basement office, or if it's been filled up with the paper trails left by busy agents. He likes not being shut away this time around; the bustle of the others is comforting after so long alone in the house, or alone on the road. He puts the old picture of him and Samantha on his desk, along with a photo of himself and Scully, some crime scene candid he stole from the photographers. It wasn't evidence of anything but their closeness. In it, they are standing together, black coats flapping in a half-remembered breeze. His dark head is bent close to her bright one. She is gesturing at something, and he is listening so intently that he almost feels as if he's eavesdropping on their younger selves. He half expects the Scully in the photograph to turn and glare at him. Those were the days, he thinks wistfully, but there's more fondness in it than ache. In the center drawer of his desk is another picture of Scully, holding William, and he can almost hear her tuneless lullaby. She would be upset, he thinks, if he kept it on his desk, but this way it's always close. The routine is easy to pick up again, even after all his shiftless, drifting purgatory. His life falls into place like a needle into a groove. He works, and it's hard, but it's satisfying. He meets a few of the other agents, who all seem competent enough. Leyla Harrison comes by one day, looking a little more world-weary than the bright-eyed young agent he remembers. "I heard you were back," she says shyly. "That's what they say," he tells her, shaking her hand. "And Agent Scully?" she asks. "She's back too," Mulder says. "Check forensics. You might catch her between classes." "And the X-Files?" Harrison asks, a tinge of hope in her voice. Mulder shakes his head. "No plans to reopen the division at this time," he says. "That's too bad," Harrison says earnestly. "The two of you did important work." "I hope that will be true whether or not we're tackling the cases nobody else wants," he says, letting it be a joke. "It's good to see you, Agent Mulder," she says. "You too, Agent Harrison," he tells her. "Thank you for all your support. It means a lot to know that someone was on our side." She nods, flashing him a heartfelt smile, and clips away in the direction of the lab. He hopes that Scully will be kind to her. He thinks of Antarctica: his memory is a flat white blur of numbness except for the bundle of Scully in his arms. They must have gotten to the Snowcat. They must have made their way back, rumbling over the ice. But the only thing he can see clearly in his mind is Scully's face, bleary and pale, framed by the hood of his coat, her eyes and her nose and her lips red from the cold. The rest of it is a blur until he woke up in the hospital, panicking because he couldn't feel her weight next to him. It's strange how these things come and go. He flexes his toes inside his shoes to banish the remembered ache. He'd risked frostbite, the doctors told him, and it was a miracle he hadn't lost any fingers or toes to the ice and the damp. But she'd needed his socks. He would have traded all his toes to keep her warm and safe. He's riddling his way through a profile when a cup of coffee appears on the edge of his desk. He looks up and Scully is there. The tiniest smile plays about her lips. Blink and you'll miss it, he thinks, and wonders if anyone else would even see it. "I hear you sent Agent Harrison my way," she says. He leans back and stretches a little in his chair. "I don't kick puppies, Scully." "Hmm," she says. "Well. It was nice to see her." "Your number two fan," he says, picking up the coffee. "Maybe number three if we count Skinner." She raises an eyebrow at him. "Thank you." "It's nice to be appreciated," he tells her. "Did you have any trouble finding me?" "I just followed the trail of sunflower seeds," she says, lifting her coffee to her lips to hide the fact that she's smiling again. He inclines his head in recognition of the point. "Were you going to come and see me, if Harrison hadn't come along?" he asks, and it's easier than it would have been before. His existence doesn't hinge upon her answer. "I was," she says. "It's hard to find the time." He gazes up at her and raises his own eyebrow in a parody of her expression. She sighs and drops her eyes to the ground. "It would be easy," she says, lifting her head with that particular gravity, "to fall back into old habits." "Too easy?" he asks. "Yes," she says, her eyes on his now. "So I put it off. But I'm here." "You are," he agrees. They look at each other for a long moment. She looks away first, at the pictures on his desk. "Mulder," she says, and just his name contains multitudes: reproach, fondness, wistfulness, irritation. "Just somebody I used to work with," he says. "She's my physician and my friend." She squints at him slightly. "You know better than that." "It isn't in a heart-shaped frame," he points out. "Nobody's going to look that closely." "That's a relief," she says. "No more bugs in my pen." "Or your wall socket," he says, "and no cameras in the ceiling." "Some days I don't know how we survived," she says. "We were saved by good works," he tells her. "Or maybe some measure of grace. We kept the faith." "We did," she says. "However strangely." "I always thought heaven would be a little better lit than this," he jokes. "If there's anything I've learned from my years working with you, Mulder, it's that one should always expect the unexpected," she says, and checks her watch. "I've got to get back." "See you around," he says, tinting it with a question. "I'm sure you will," she tells him, and then she's gone. He watches her weave her way across the office floor, striding firmly over the dingy carpet. Her hair seems redder again; it draws his eye like a beacon. He sips at his coffee and lets it heat him from the inside out. All the years later and she's still keeping him warm. It's enough, for today. He turns back to his file. + + + + Feedback is welcome at leiascully@gmail.com. Stories from all fandoms are archived at http://archiveofourown.org/users/leiascully.