Title:   Stay
Author:  Emma Brightman
Classification:  VA
Rating:  PG
Disclaimer:  Not mine
Spoilers:  Paper Clip, Closure, Per Manum, TINH
Summary:   "He lost Mulder by not paying attention; 
            he won't lose her the same way."
Archival:  Yes, but please let me know
Feedback:  emmabrightman1013@yahoo.com

I'm deeply grateful to Pteropod and Maria Nicole, whose beta reading and
advice made all the difference.  Thank you!

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Skinner squints against the glare of oncoming headlights, fiercely
gripping the steering wheel as the windshield wipers make feeble slaps
against the glass in front of him.  He imagines a hundred stormy nights
like this one, thunder rumbling through some rental car's seats, Scully's
delicate profile burning itself onto Mulder's peripheral vision as
lightning flashes around them.  He can picture the two of them riding in
silence through some small town or other, down some long stretch of
endless highway, but beyond that the picture grows blurry and indistinct.

He has lived on the fringes of their insular world for years, but he still
can't speak with certainty about what they were to each other.  At first
Scully's pregnancy seemed a sign they were more than partners and friends,
but since the fiasco at the army hospital he's become less certain. 
Scully hasn't said a word to him either way, and he can't bring himself to
ask.  

He sighs and lets up on the gas, slowing the car to a crawl as he
struggles to keep between the lines on the road. The rain is following
them -- a harsh storm all too appropriate to his mood.  Mulder's funeral
was held in the pouring rain this morning, the cold front predicted for
Sunday pushing through a day early, just in time to soak the scanty crowd
surrounding the grave, leaving them shivering in the bitter wind.  Scully
hadn't cried when he'd given his eulogy, or when Frohike had attempted to
speak, unable to finish because of his tears. 

When she sniffles from the passenger seat beside him he knows without
looking that she isn't crying now, either.  He hasn't seen her shed a tear
since the night they found Mulder's body, and he doesn't expect to be
allowed to see any more.  He's afraid that whatever tentative closeness
they developed during months of searching ended in the Montana woods. 
Scully closed herself off the moment he lifted her boneless body from the
dusty floor of the compound, since then barely speaking to him unless it
was about the case, and even then with the fewest words possible. He can't
help feeling stung by her terseness, wondering if she regrets letting her
guard down with him, embarrassed by some imagined weakness.

He was surprised when she agreed to ride with him to and from Raleigh, but
didn't let himself question it for long.  Their hours in the car may be
dragging on, silent and tense, but at least she's not driving home alone
in this storm.  He lost Mulder by not paying attention; he won't lose her
the same way.

Scully sniffles again and he reaches into the pocket of his suit jacket,
fumbling for his handkerchief with one hand while trying to keep control
of the car with the other.  She's getting a cold, he thinks peevishly --
one more misery heaped upon her during this goddamned miserable week. 
Blue-black smudges beneath her eyes tell him she hasn't slept, and he
hasn't seen her eat anything in days, though he assumes she must have.  He
is turning into a mother hen where she's concerned, but the impulse to
take care of her is too strong for him to resist.  He wants her to know
how sorry he feels, but if he tries to find the words he'll disintegrate
before her eyes.  So he hovers and tends to her, hoping she'll understand.
 

Scully blows her nose and returns his handkerchief, then turns her head to
stare out the window, looking up at the sky.  She is searching, he's sure,
for the stars hidden by the thick clouds above them.  "Take me to
Alexandria," she says.  "There's something I need to do at the apartment."


She can't even bring herself to say *his* apartment.  

"Scully...Dana.  It's been such a long day.  Why not go home, get some
rest.  You can do whatever you need to do tomorrow or the next day."  He
glances over to see her face as she turns back to him.  The streetlights
cast shadows of raindrops over her cheeks, like tracks of unshed tears.

"Please.  I need to be there."

She's been staying at Mulder's apartment all week, since they returned
from Montana until they left for Raleigh yesterday; he supposes one more
night can't hurt.  Besides, he reminds himself, he's not her keeper.  She
can do as she pleases.  He nods sadly and turns his attention back to the
road, heading for Alexandria.

><> <><
	
The rain slows from a deluge to a steady downpour as he parks outside
Mulder's apartment building -- a small blessing for which he's grateful as
he pulls Scully's travel-battered suitcase from the trunk and walks her to
the front door of the building beneath his black umbrella.  Scully pulls
her keychain from her coat pocket and finds Mulder's key easily, sliding
it into the keyhole and pushing the door open, releasing a loud whoosh of
dry, heater-warmed air.

"Will you come in?" she asks.  "I think there's some tea."  

Skinner shakes his head, unable to play along with her ingrained
politeness.  "Thanks...no.  I should probably get home before the storm
gets worse again, and you need to rest.  Eat something, okay?  And get
some sleep."

He's about to hand her the suitcase and walk away when she reaches out and
lightly grasps his forearm in her small hand.  "Please stay," she says in
the scared, little-girl voice she used when she woke him last week, afraid
of her dreams.  "I don't think I can go up there alone.  Not tonight."

Tenderness and remorse wash over him as he looks down at her pale fingers
on his arm and realizes how eager he'd been to leave.  "Okay," he says,
slowly nodding his head.  "Okay."  

Before they get in the elevator Skinner shakes the water from his
umbrella, and Scully stops to check Mulder's mail in the foyer, fumbling
with the jumble of bulk rate envelopes and catalogs stuffed inside the
small box.  Skinner marvels for the hundredth time at her presence of
mind, at her attention to detail, at her ability to cope.  She has spent
the last week in a whirlwind of activity, insisting on interviewing Teresa
Hoese and the others at the cult compound, on examining Mulder's body
herself, not trusting him to anyone else and vehemently denying those who
wanted him autopsied.  She arranged for the funeral in Raleigh and
coordinated the others who were also traveling there, always refusing the
help they offered.  

He has seen her clinging to control before -- after her abduction, after
her sister's murder, during her cancer.  He finds himself awestruck and
terrified at the same time, afraid he will be there when the dam inside
her breaks, and just as afraid that he won't be.

The apartment is cold and dark, and the lemony smell of cleaning products
assaults him as they enter the room.  The last time he was here the place
was a dusty mess; Scully must have spent the last few days cleaning, on
top of everything else.

"I'll make the tea," Scully says, switching on a lamp and shrugging out of
her coat.  She tosses it on the coat rack before walking into the kitchen,
the clack of her shoes echoing in the silence.

Skinner hangs his trench coat beside hers, and puts his umbrella and
Scully's suitcase on the floor.  Wearily, he collapses on the couch and
listens to Scully busying herself in the kitchen -- rinsing cups, filling
the kettle, opening and closing cabinets in search of the tea he's sure
neither of them wants.  Anything to keep herself in motion.  Anything to
keep from confronting the void left in this place. 

Skinner lets his eyes roam over the room.  He can't help remembering
another time he and Scully were alone here, the first time they'd feared
Mulder was dead.  She hadn't trusted him then, and the terror and loathing
in her eyes as she pointed a gun at his head is a painfully vivid memory. 
Some lonely, selfish part of him, a part whose existence he can barely
stand to acknowledge, is glad for the changes that circumstances have
brought into their relationship these past months.  Though he would give
anything to have Mulder burst through the front door right now as he did
years ago, he can't help finding a perverse satisfaction in receiving a
portion of Scully's trust. 

As Scully returns to the room with two steaming mugs of tea, Skinner's
eyes land on the aquarium, glowing eerily in the corner of the room.  A
goldfish is floating belly-up in the murky water, bits of its flesh
beginning to flake away.  The other fish hover nearby, darting close to
pick at it with their gaping mouths.  Their eyes are huge, unblinking;
he's never before realized how strange they look.  How alien. 

Scully tracks his wandering gaze and sees the fish, and before he can say
anything she slams the mugs down on the coffee table in front of him,
sending tea sloshing over the sides and onto her hands.  She's beside the
tank in a flash, plunging her hand into the water, scooping up the corpse
and sending the scavengers scurrying away.

"I forgot to feed the fish.  I forgot all about them," she says, quiet but
panicked.  Skinner has to strain to hear her voice above the aquarium's
hum and the rain beating against the windows.  Scully turns to him with
wide, empty eyes, wanting something from him -- what, he's not sure. 
Forgiveness?  Comfort?  He feels at a loss, as he has for months.

"You had so much on your mind...it's just a fish," he says, watching her
as she bows her head and gazes at the mangled body in her trembling palm. 
He doesn't know what to say so he says anything, words spilling stupidly
from his mouth.  "You can get another one if you want to keep the tank. 
And this one lived a long time for a fish.  I don't know how-"

"Look what they did to it!"  She interrupts harshly, ignoring his
ridiculous babbling, or else oblivious to the sound of his voice.  Her
pale face is lit by the tank's garish light.  "God damn them, they picked
the poor thing apart."  Glassy-eyed, she examines the goldfish, stroking
it with the index finger of her other hand as if cataloging its injuries. 
Memorizing the injustices done to it, just as she'd done for Mulder's
mutilated body.

"Please...please, don't."  He's ashamed by how frightened he is, by how
helpless he feels watching Scully come unhinged. 

Her face crumples and she begins to cry, her barely-intelligible words
escaping between quiet, hitching sobs.  "They tortured him...for their
fucking tests...left him out there to die in the cold...oh God,
Mulder...in the cold..."

Skinner stares, stunned and motionless, as Scully doubles over with a moan
that seems to claw its way up from the depths of her soul, ripping its way
out of her throat.  She collapses to the floor and he finally manages to
move toward her, hearing the thud of her knees against wood just before
the room fills with her violent, wracking sobs.  The sound is primal,
visceral; he can hardly reconcile the wretched noise in his ears with the
tiny woman huddled on the floor.

His knees crack as he kneels in front of her, stiff from too many hours
spent cramped in the car.  Without thinking he pulls her into his arms,
holding her tightly to his chest for a long time, rocking her back and
forth until at last he feels her relax against him, her sobs subsiding to
muffled whimpers.  He presses a kiss to the tangle of her hair, still damp
from the rain.  It leaves a sticky, bitter residue of hair spray on his
lips.  She doesn't meet his eyes as he pulls away from her, instead
staring vacantly at the fish still clutched in her hand.  Skinner takes it
from her and helps her up from the floor.

"Come here," he says, walking her to the couch and guiding her to sit on
the still-dented cushions.  "Stay right there...I'll be back in a minute."

Scully nods almost imperceptibly, so he goes to the bathroom and shuts the
door behind him.  He lifts the toilet seat and drops the goldfish into the
water with a sickening plop, letting the lid slam shut before flushing the
fish and scrubbing his hands with the slimy bar of motel Ivory in the soap
dish by the sink.  

Scully's hands, he thinks, drying his own on a towel from the neatly
folded stack on the shelf.  He rummages through drawers in search of a
clean washcloth and some burn ointment, pausing when he finds a half-empty
box of tampons shoved in the back of a drawer, behind a worn out hairbrush
and an unopened box of Q-Tips. For a moment he's absurdly taken aback by
the intimacy of it.  They couldn't be anyone's but Scully's, and they had
to be months old now, considering her condition.  He's surprised at the
sharp twinge of...something...inside him; he already knew, even if he
sometimes tried to deny it to himself, even though he's never had definite
proof.  He pinches the bridge of his nose in frustration at his own
adolescent jealousy. 

Finally he finds a tube of ointment in the medicine cabinet and a thin
washcloth hanging on the rack behind him.  He rinses it in hot water
before going back out to Scully, finding her exactly where he left her
five minutes ago.  Her tears are silent now, sliding over her cheeks and
down her neck, leaving a dark ring on the collar of her gray turtleneck. 
Spots of black dot the front of her shirt.

Skinner sits beside her and hands her the warm washcloth.  "Here...you
need to wash your hands, and I got something for where you burned
yourself."

When Scully just stares at him, he's afraid she's disappeared altogether,
retreating into darkness as he saw Mulder do more than once.  His relief
when she shakes her head and takes the cloth from his hands is so great
that he almost heaves a huge, hot sigh of relief right in her face. 
Scully scrubs at her hands with the rough terrycloth, and when Skinner
begins to open the tube of ointment, she takes it from him to do it
herself. 

"I'm sorry," she says, dabbing cream on the spots of bright red skin on
the back of her hands.  Her voice is husky and raw.

"There's nothing to be sorry for.  You've been so strong for days."  He
gives her his handkerchief again and she blows her nose and wipes her
face.

"I saw him.  The night we found him...I saw him in my motel room.  I
glanced away for one second and he was gone."  She exhales sharply, part
chuff of laughter, part muffled sob, and presses her fingertips to her
lips.  "He did that to me all the time when he was alive.  I guess it's no
great leap to think that his spirit would do the same thing."

Skinner reaches for a mug of tea on the table in front of him, the ceramic
wet and clammy now.  He hands it to Scully, who takes a tiny sip and
grimaces at the taste.  

"I knew then that he was gone...even if we'd never found his body, I'd
have known.  It's like Mulder said.  You can't see someone's...
ghost...and still hope to find them alive."  She takes another sip of tea
and sets the cup back on the table with a sad smile.  "I wonder what he'd
say if he knew how often I'm agreeing with him these days."

When she leans back again Skinner wraps his arm around her, and after a
moment's hesitation she relaxes, her warmth soaking into his body,
comforting him, he's sure, more than he can comfort her.

"I knew Mulder for a long time, Scully, and there's one thing I can tell
you for certain.  You were everything to him...knowing you...it changed
his life." 

He hears her beginning to cry again, sees her dabbing at her eyes with the
handkerchief still clasped in her hand, but he needs to say the words to
her.  If he doesn't say them now, he knows they'll never be said.

"This last year I saw something in him...sometimes it's easier to see
things when you're not so close to someone, and I saw a man who was calmer
and more at peace about his life than I'd ever seen him before.  He found
the truth about his sister...and he had you.  I don't care what Agent
Doggett or Agent Reyes or some supposed medical files say.  Mulder was
happy in his own way, and nothing can convince me otherwise." 

"I hope so," Scully whispers.  "I hope you're right."  She toes off her
shoes and shoves them aside with a stockinged foot before tucking both
feet up beside her.

"I am right.  You just have to hang on to those memories.  And
remember...you're not alone.  You have your friends...you have me.  I'm
not going anywhere."

She nods sleepily against his chest.  "Good," she murmurs, her eyes
fluttering shut.  "Good."

"You have your family, too.  You have your baby."

"Yes," she mumbles, drifting off.  "I have his baby."  

She begins to snore softly beside him, her weight a reassuring pressure
against his side.  With his free arm he reaches for the scratchy Indian
blanket draped over the sofa's back, carefully covering her, letting her
rest at last.  

Watching her sleep, he is mesmerized by her pink, wind-chapped lips,
slightly parted as she breathes a damp spot onto his shirt.  He wonders if
she even realizes what she told him.  He wants to believe that she trusts
him that much, that despite all she's lost, what remains will be enough to
see her through this.

Skinner sighs and gently pulls her closer, fingering a strand of hair
that's stuck to her cheek, tucking it behind her ear.  Maybe he'll take
her into the bedroom in a little while so she can get some sleep in a
soft, comfortable bed.  But for the moment he needs her there beside him,
needs her safe in his arms as the thunder rolls outside.

end

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