Transfigured Night

9/30/00
Title: Transfigured Night
Author: ML
Distribution: Just please let me know where so I can visit.
Spoilers: Requiem
Rating: Older teens (mild adult situations)
Classification: MSR
Keywords: Mulder/Scully romance
Summary: Mulder returns from Oregon and points unknown.

This is a sequel to “Another Gray Morning.”

Disclaimer:  The characters mentioned in this story are the property of Ten Thirteen, Chris Carter, FOX.  Mulder and Scully most definitely also belong to David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson.  I mean no infringement and I am  making no profit from this.

Author’s notes at end of story.

Look, how brightly the universe shines! Splendor falls on everything around, you are voyaging with me on a cold sea, but there is the glow of an inner warmth from you in me, from me in you. … You have transfused me with splendor, you have made a child of me.
– from “Transfigured Night” by Richard Dehmel

 

Transfigured Night

by ML

One moment he was standing, sticking his hand into a  force field, the next: face down in the loamy soil of the forest.  And cold.  He lay without moving for a  moment, catching his breath, assessing his condition.

Okay.  All his limbs seemed there, and sound.  His mind seemed okay.  In fact, he felt better than okay.  His mind felt sharp and clear in a way it hadn’t for some time.

<What an idiot> he thought as he lay there.  It seemed appropriate, somehow, to have landed on his face in the mud.  A fitting end to the X-Files, and symbolic of so many of his ventures.

He sat up and looked around.  No light anywhere.  The  lasers he set up seemed to have disappeared, or he had wandered farther away than he thought.  Where did Skinner go?  He felt fear lance through him.  Had Skinner been  taken?  No, surely he’d remember something like that… he stood up gingerly.

<oh god…>

A wave of vertigo hit him so hard he felt like he would fall off the planet.

<But I just got back…oh god…>

Memories, as diffuse as they were terrifying, washed over him.  Then, as quickly as it started, the flood  stopped.

Now, he remembered.  He knew where he’d been.  He looked at his watch, but he couldn’t remember what time it was  the last time he looked at it.  <Well, at least I can tell it’s still night.  But is it the same night?  Somehow I  don’t think so.>  He began to trudge in the direction of the road.

He hadn’t gotten very far when he heard Skinner’s voice.  “Mulder!”  A flashlight signaled through the trees.

“Over here!” Mulder shouted, his voice sounding strange to him. <How long have I been gone?  How long?  HOW LONG?>

In a very short time Skinner reached Mulder.  “My God, Mulder, I can’t believe it.  How long have you been here?”

“You tell me,” Mulder said to his boss.  “How long was  I gone?”

“Several months, Mulder.  How do you feel?  Can you walk? Let’s get you out of here.”  Skinner gestured toward the road.

<MONTHS?> “I can walk just fine.  Is Scully here?  How is she?”

Skinner was walking a little ahead and Mulder saw him  pause before he said guardedly, “Scully’s back in DC. She’s been very worried about you,” he added.

“HOW IS SHE?” Mulder repeated loudly.  When Skinner  didn’t reply right away, he added, “What aren’t you  telling me?”

Then all at once, he *knew*.  “Scully had a baby, didn’t she?” he said slowly, words and images forming in his mind as he spoke. <my god, a baby.  how do I know that?>

Skinner turned and stared at him.  “How did you know that?”

Mulder shook his head.  “I just know.”

“Did you read my mind?” Skinner demanded.

“No, it’s not so simple as that.  I-I think I knew  already, and I just remembered.”  He wondered how many other secrets his mind was keeping from him. <I hope that’s the biggest one.  my god, a baby.  *my* baby?>

Skinner stared at him like he’d just crawled out from under a rock <or like I’ve just dropped from the sky.> Mulder’s humor defense mechanism was still alive and well.

“Let’s get you out of here,” Skinner said again.  He led the way out of the forest.

“How’d you know where to look for me?” Mulder asked as they got to the road.

Skinner looked at him and deadpanned, “I just knew.”

It took Mulder a minute to realize that his boss was making a joke.  He smiled a little.  “No, really.   Tell me.”

“Abductees started returning a couple of weeks ago. I’ve been out here since then.”  He didn’t add anything more, just unlocked the car doors.

Mulder prodded him.  “Who told you about the abductees?”

“Your friends have been monitoring through MUFON ever  since you went missing.  They knew to contact me as soon as they heard anything.”

<Man. My boss, AD of the FBI, working with MUFON.  Maybe the world as I know it *has* ended.>  Aloud, Mulder didn’t comment on this bit of information.  “So you’ve been out here every day?”

Skinner shook his head.  “Nights, mostly.  That’s when most of the abductees have been returned.”

“Am I the last to be returned?”

“No, you’re not the last.  Not here, and not in other  locales,” Skinner watched the road, not Mulder, but Mulder could tell he had a lot of questions for him, too.

Mulder continued to prod Skinner for more information.  “What do you mean by other locales?”

“People are being returned all over the country. All over the world, actually.”  Skinner let that sink in for a minute.

Mulder felt another flash of *something* he was supposed to know, but it wasn’t clear this time what it was.  He cleared his throat and asked, “How do you know all this?”

“The Gunmen have kept me informed since the beginning,  a month or more ago, here in Oregon.”  They passed a sign indicating Bellefleur was the next turn.

Mulder finally had to say it.  “You’ve been working with  Byers, Frohike, and Langly.  Man, a guy goes away for a  little while and the whole world changes.”

“That’s what we’re worried about,” said Skinner, glancing over at Mulder.  “That this is the start of something.”

Gripped again by a sudden fear, Mulder said, “I gotta call Scully.”  <Scully’s a mother.  She has a baby. *We* have a baby?>

“No, Mulder, you can’t.  We’re going to get on the first  flight we can get out of here and get you back to DC.”

“Why can’t I call her first?  We can’t just show up on her doorstep.”  He could imagine the reaming out in store for him.  <Talk about ditching your partner–and leaving her  holding the baby, to boot…>

“I think that the fewer people who know you’ve been  returned, the better,”  Skinner told him.  “And I don’t know who might be listening over the phone.  I’ll call  Scully to tell her I’m coming back, and that I’ll tell  her my news when we get there.”

“Don’t you suppose that if *people* are listening to  your phone conversations, they might also be watching the airports and airline manifests?”

“I think we’ve got that covered,”  Skinner said.  They pulled into a motel parking lot.  “I have a room here  for you, and we’ll spend the night here.  We’ll leave  first thing in the morning.”

xxxxxx

True to his word, Skinner banged on Mulder’s door just before sunrise.  Mulder was already up and dressed.  He hadn’t really slept much anyway.  After showering and  changing into fresh clothes–his own, in his own  overnight bag, brought by Skinner from Washington– he’d flopped onto the bed and channel-surfed the night away, catching up with news.  Not that it was much  different than when he went away.  The only earth- shaking thing that might be happening probably wouldn’t be reported by any news agency until it was too late.

So he sat and willed himself not to pick up the phone to call Scully.  He thought of her at home, sleeping, not  knowing of his return.  And of the baby.  <I should have figured it out before> he thought.  <No wonder she agreed to stay behind in DC when I came to Oregon.  She had to have known.  But how do I know now?>

Except for small blinding moments of memory, he couldn’t  remember much about his time away.  He could remember  walking into the circle to the other abductees and their acknowledgment of him.  He could remember the Bounty  Hunter entering the circle, and his fear, as well as  that of everyone around him, in palpable waves.  Then bright light and nothingness.  Except the memory of  pain, and what he did to try and escape the pain.

He had a lot of questions for Skinner, about what he’d  found out, how he’d gotten so involved in something so  far outside the FBI mainstream, but they can wait until after he’s seen Scully, reassured himself that she’s  okay, talked to her about this new addition to their  lives.

He was relieved when Skinner came to the door to call  him. Once back in Washington, and once he’s seen Scully <and the baby>, he could start trying to put the pieces together.

xxxxxx

It took them the better part of the day to get across the country by the roundabout methods they used.  First they  took a small commuter plane to Boise, then another to  Cheyenne, and so on.  They hopscotched across the country, with tickets for each destination in different names.  This seemed excessive for Skinner; it had the Gunmen’s signature all over it.  Mulder wondered how on earth they convinced  Skinner to do this.

Skinner was pretty quiet all along the way, making  conversation only when necessary.  He seemed to want to  avoid talking about the activities he’d been involved in, citing security concerns.  “Time enough for that when  we’re back in DC,” he said to all of Mulder’s questions.

It was just as well, Mulder reflected. He had so much to  process, and as yet, so little to tell himself.  He spent the long hours in the air and on the ground thinking about Scully, and their impending reunion.

The last airport was in Virginia, rather than the  Washington, DC airport.  They retrieved a Bureau car  in the parking lot and headed for Georgetown.  They had been traveling for better than sixteen hours.

Byers, Frohike and Langly met them outside Scully’s  apartment.  Their reunion was typically understated.

“Hey, Mulder, my man,” Frohike said, sticking his hand out to shake.  Mulder did so, solemnly.  “I guess you’re not getting my videos just yet, Frohike,” Mulder said with a straight face.

“Actually, Scully gave them to me for safekeeping,”  Frohike smirked.  “She had to put a bunch of your stuff in storage, and there just wasn’t room for everything.”

Byers and Langly in turn shook his hand and muttered something.

“Thanks, guys,” Mulder said.  A simple word, but they knew.

Skinner knocked on Scully’s door.  No answer.  “She’s  probably asleep,” he said.  Frohike produced a key, much to Mulder’s surprise.

“Don’t get medieval on me, Mulder,” Frohike said, grinning, “she gave it to me.”

“Well, now you can just give it back,” Mulder said, only half-joking.

“Boys…”  Byers said warningly.

One lamp was on low in the living room, but no one was  there.  No Scully dozing on the sofa.

Skinner gestured toward the bedroom door standing ajar. Dim light showed around the edges.  “Well, Agent Mulder, you’d better go check it out.”

<Just what I need, an audience for our reunion.>  Mulder looked around at the other men.  “You guys stay out here. I’ll call if I need you.”

Frohike snorted and Byers shushed him again.

Mulder walked softly to the door and opened it wider.   The light came from a nightlight shaped like a quarter  moon, standing on the chest of drawers.  Next to the  chest was a crib.

He closed the bedroom door softly.  He glanced over to Scully, asleep.  Then he stepped up to the crib and  peered in.

A small form lay sprawled under a blanket.  His head was turned to one side, arms thrown out.  Scully’s child.   His child; theirs.  Even though he had *known* about the baby already, actually seeing him made him a reality. Mulder was not prepared for the surge of emotion: wonder, protectiveness, and love.  The same things he felt for  Scully, but different too.  Up until that moment, he  hadn’t known he would love this child.  Not just any  child, his and Scully’s.  Unbelievable but true.  He  gazed for a moment longer and then turned his attention to the bed where Scully lay.

She appeared to be sleeping deeply.  He crouched by the bed and took up the hand which lay outside the covers. She was wearing an old shirt of his, and looked engulfed by it.  He held her hand, as he had on so many occasions in the past, trying to impart comfort and love to her through his touch.  She stirred a tiny bit and sighed. He thought he would just sit there until she woke up,  but fatigue was getting the better of him.  <I think  I’m still allowed to be in her bed> he thought.  <It’s worth a try, anyway.>  He gently let go of her hand and crossed to the other side of the bed.  He pulled off his shoes and tried to climb in quietly, torn between  letting her sleep and wanting to wake her up.

Scully stirred again.  Her back was to him, he couldn’t see her eyes, but he heard her breathing change a  little.  He was not mistaken; she was at least a little awake.  Her inhalation turned into a sob, and he  immediately moved closer to her, trying to hug her. She pulled away and really started to cry, curled into herself.  He felt his heart shatter at this, and he  began to speak to her, saying anything that popped into his head to try and get her to look at him.

“Hey Scully, aren’t you going to talk to me ever again? I’m late, I know, I’m really, *really* late, and I’m sorry, but I’m here now.”  <oh please, Scully, don’t  turn away.  please just look at me>  He kissed the nape of her neck and gently but firmly pulled on her shoulder to make her turn over and look at him.

She opened her eyes, wet with tears and disbelief.  He smiled into her eyes as she tried to catch her  breath without sobbing.  “See, Scully, it really is me,” he said softly, tucking the strand of hair away from her face.

She buried her face in the crook of his shoulder and cried.  He held her, stroking her hair and her back,  keeping up a flow of soft words that he was sure she didn’t hear half of, but at least could feel.  He  kissed what parts of her he could reach: the top of her head, her temple, her cheek.  He rested his cheek on the crown of her head and let her work through the months of emotion she’d stored up.  His own eyes stung with unshed tears and he shut them, reveling in the  feel of Scully in his arms again, after nothing but  dreams and imagination for so long.

xxxxxx

Some time later he woke up from a light doze to feel Scully shift in his arms.  She gazed at him as if she  was still unsure of the reality of his presence.  He kissed her mouth softly.  “Hi,” he said.

She smiled shakily.  “Mulder–”

“Shh.  You’ll wake the baby,” he said with a smile,  laying his finger against her lips.  She started a  little.

“Did Skinner tell you?”  she asked.

“No, no one told me.  I somehow *knew* when I asked Skinner how you were.  It just sort of…came to me.” He kissed her again.  “Scully, did you know before I  went to Oregon?”

It was a long minute before she answered.  “I wasn’t  sure.  I couldn’t believe–and I wanted to, so much.  Until I was sure, I couldn’t say anything, or even admit it to myself.  I knew you had to go to Oregon.  Knowing, or suspecting this, wouldn’t have helped you.”

He was silent, processing this.  Trust Scully not to  pull punches, not to take refuge in the easy fiction. <Maybe *I* suspected something, too.  Maybe some remnant of that ability was still active, even then.  But she’s right.  It would have been much, much harder, but I  still would have gone to Oregon.>

“You know I didn’t go willingly.  On the ship, I mean,” he said, holding her eyes with his.

“I know you had to go,” she said softly.  “You had no  choice, even if you *were* given one.”

Her capacity for forgiveness and understanding stunned  him.  Another fragment of the time away came back to  him, the safe place he went to in his head while he was gone, the place where Scully lived.

“You were with me the whole time,” he told her.  “When  it got to be too much, when I didn’t think I could take any more.  You saved me.  Again and again.”

She raised her mouth to his and he kissed her again,  kissed her in homecoming, kissed her to make up for the months and months when he could only remember and  imagine.  They were soft, comforting, undemanding  kisses at first, lips gliding over lips, moving to caress eyelids, cheeks, temples, throat…

He heard a low noise and thought at first it was  Scully.  Her reaction told him it was not.  She put her hand on his chest and whispered against his mouth, “It’s the baby.  He’s hungry.”  She sat up.

He sat up too.  “Do you want me to go?”

“Why?”  she smiled at him, touched his lips.  “It’s  nothing you haven’t seen before.  Do you want to pick him up and bring him to me?”

The very thought terrified him but he got up anyway and approached the crib.  The baby lay there, not  really crying, just murmuring to himself.  He looked up at his father and waved his fists around, gurgling. Mulder reached down and lifted him carefully out of the crib, holding him against his chest.  He was surprisingly heavy.  He smelled of sleep and Scully.

Scully sat up in bed, watching them approach, saying nothing.  She reached her arms out to take the baby  and got him started nursing.  Mulder watched in  fascination and crawled over to his side of the bed  to sit beside Scully, his arm around her.

It was unexpectedly moving to watch them.  Also  arousing, in a way.  He put his arm around Scully’s shoulders and nuzzled in her hair.  She looked up at him and he kissed her.  She kissed him back.  He put  his fingers under her chin and held her just so as they continued to share kisses.  He received sustenance and comfort from this woman as surely as his son did.

Once the baby was fed, Scully hoisted him up to her shoulder to burp him and then started to get out of bed.

“Where are you going?”  Mulder asked, laying his hand on her arm.

“He needs changing now.  All part of the routine,  Mulder,” she smiled and continued on her way.

He got up too and followed her over to the changing table and watched.

“This isn’t pretty, Mulder,” she warned.

“Can’t be any worse than alien goo,” he said, but he exhaled rather forcefully all the same.  “Well, maybe just as bad.  But a guy’s gotta learn somehow.”

“Plan on helping with this, Mulder?” she teased a  little, but her eyes were serious.

“With everything,” he said, matching her tone and her look.  “Except for the feeding part, that is.  Don’t  think I can learn *that*.”

Once finished with that little chore, she started to put the baby back down in the crib, though he didn’t seem to be very sleepy.  He looked from one adult to the other with solemn eyes, clenching and unclenching his tiny fists.

“Bring him back to bed with us for a while,” Mulder suggested.

“Do you want to hold him?” Scully asked as they settled themselves.  He nodded, and she handed him over, showing him how to support the baby’s head.  She leaned her head on Mulder’s shoulder.  “I never expected this,” she whispered, letting the baby clutch at her finger.

“You mean, having a baby?”  Mulder asked, fascinated by his son’s fascination with his mother.

“All of this.  Sitting here, as if we led a normal life, just two people–parents–and their child.”  She looked  up at him.  “But it’s not going to last, is it?”

Mulder felt a chill.  <What am I supposed to remember?>  “Nothing lasts, Scully.  We’ll do what we can.”

“We haven’t talked about what happened to you yet,” she said.

“I guess Junior here has kept us a little busy,” he  said.  <you’re keeping us from some other stuff, too, aren’t you, little boy?>  “Speaking of Junior, what is his name?”

“I don’t know,” she said.  “I’ve been waiting for you  to come back before giving him a name.”

In an evening filled with emotion and revelation, this admission filled him to overflowing.  It was a  confirmation of her faith that he *would* return, expressed so simply and easily he had trouble catching his breath.  “Oh, Scully,” he said quietly.  “I love  you so much.”

“I never doubted it,” she said, sitting up to kiss him again, catching the tears he hadn’t realized were  coursing down his cheeks.

He smiled against her mouth and pulled her away a  little bit.  “But I’m not gonna drive a mini-van,  Scully, so you can just put that out of your mind.”

xxxxxx

The baby finally dropped off to sleep in Mulder’s arms and they spoke in whispers over his head.   “I’ve got something to give back to you,” he said, “but my hands are kinda full.  I didn’t lose your cross, it’s still around my neck.”

She ran her fingers under the neck of his sweater and pulled the chain out.  It glowed softly in the dim  light.  “How did you manage to keep this?”  she asked.

“I don’t know yet,” he replied.  “I can’t remember very much of my time away.  When I landed, or woke up, in the forest, I was wearing the same clothes, had my  wallet, my watch, everything.  Skinner took the other things to be tested but I wouldn’t let him have this.”

She touched it again with her fingers and then touched  his cheek.  “I knew you’d bring it back.” Her eyes were shiny with tears again.  Mindful of the sleeping baby  in his arms, he leaned over to kiss her again.

For all that he’d had no sleep to speak of in the last twenty-four hours, Mulder was reluctant to sleep now.  He wanted to put off tomorrow, prolong this magical  night for as long as possible before they had to return to their lives again.  Finally he felt Scully take the baby from his arms.  His eyes fluttered open to see her lay him in the crib, leaning down to kiss him goodnight. Mulder felt it himself like a benediction, as if he  were the baby.

He closed his eyes again and felt Scully get back into bed.  “Lie down, Mulder,” she urged gently.  She eased his sweater off, leaving him in his tee shirt.  Then  she pulled back the covers and coaxed him out of his  jeans as well before covering him back up.  “You’ve got to get some sleep,” she whispered.  “If I know Skinner, he’ll be back at the crack of dawn for you.”

His eyes flew open again.  “I left Skinner and the boys in the living room when I came in here.  Do you suppose they’re still out there?”

Scully smiled.  “Frohike might be, but I bet Skinner persuaded them all to go home and get a good night’s  sleep.  He’s going to have them very busy tomorrow.  And you, too.  I’ll bet you haven’t been checked out by a doctor yet.”

“No, I was waiting to be seen by my own personal physician,” he told her, just to see her smile again.

She rewarded him briefly, and added, “Well, for right now, your physician is prescribing bed rest, and plenty of it,” she said, trying not to smile further at his reaction to her words.

“Those are some doctor’s orders I can take, as long as the doctor is here to enforce them,” he grinned, and then yawned mightily.

Scully looked at him very seriously.  “Mulder, I know that the future is more uncertain now that it ever has been.  But no matter what, at least we’ve had this time together.  I’ve told myself that ever since you went  away, and this night has been more than I could have  hoped for, even yesterday.  I’m grateful for whatever time we have together.”

He traced his fingers down her cheek and over her lips. “Scully, I still don’t know what tomorrow will bring  myself.  There’s so much I don’t yet remember about my time away.  But we will find the answers together, just as we always have.  It’s more important now than it has ever been.  I feel it, and you feel it.  But now,  tonight, we aren’t going to talk or even think about it.  Tomorrow will come soon enough.”

He held his arms out to her and she sank into them once again.  They kissed again for a long moment, and held  onto each other fiercely.  Mulder tucked Scully against him and felt her relax into sleep.  He lay awake in the dimly lit room for some time, feeling time rush forward before sleep finally claimed him as well.

end.

Author’s notes: It’s me and music again, but this time it’s classical.  The title comes from a tone poem, “Verklarte Nacht,” by Arnold Schoenberg, which is based on the poem quoted at the beginning of the story.  If  you want to read the whole poem, the URL is www.uni-giessen.de/~gk1415/night.htm.  For those of you who already know this poem, I hasten to add that only *part* of it applies to this story, as I firmly believe that the baby *is* Mulder’s. (Although I don’t deny the other premise would also make an interesting story! <g>)

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Any feedback you’d care to give me would be greatly  appreciated.  Many, many thanks to those who responded to the first story, and talked me into writing this one!