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She should have expected the knock on the door between their hotel rooms. They’d wrapped up the Amy Jacobs case earlier that day, but storms in DC delayed their flight to the next day so they’d found themselves in Seattle for an extra night. Scully wanted nothing more than to get her and Mulder out of the oppressive gray of Washington state and back to the summer warmth of DC. It should have been a win - a young girl lives, a family is reunited, a predator is dead. Justice prevails. But there was no justice for Lucy Householder, her final days spent thrown back into the hell she’d worked so hard to escape. Scully found Mulder weeping over her frigid body alone while the other officers swarmed the property - the lone mourner of a disregarded life. The detectives surrounding them had already started patting each other on the back, but no congratulations could penetrate the haze of guilt and failure she knew surrounded Mulder like fog. Eventually she touched his shoulder and drew him away from the crowd while he collected himself. He avoided her eyes while he breathed and set his face back to the distant, sardonic mask that passed for professionalism, then nodded imperceptibly before walking away to get back to work. The next 24 hours were spent in the procedural blur of statements, evidence processing, medical evaluations, and autopsies.
Only now in the deep quiet hours of the night with nothing to do but wait would the adrenaline crash catch up to him and the poison begin to seep from the wounds left behind by the grip of his intense empathy. They sought each other out on nights like this, after the bad cases, to talk, or sit in silence just for the sake of not being alone in the wee hours. Playing endless rounds of spades in quarantine, waiting to see if they too would fall prey to volcanic fungus. Her, after Pfaster, clinging to him with the lights on in an airport hotel waiting for the first flight to get the hell away from Minneapolis. Both of them trying and failing to sleep in a fleabag double in West Virginia, his father dead, her sister dying, neither sure if the next day would see them as fugitives or not. At some point he’d migrated to sitting on her bed to continue their conversation, and she’d woken up with the warm weight of his arm on her waist and his lips on the nape of her neck. She could still feel their phantom touch on lonely nights in her own bed.
The conjoining door was unlocked, and she called out for him to let himself in. He’d changed into sleep pants and an old t-shirt at least, but his bleary eyes and askew hair told her he’d been awake. She pushed the cheap comforter off and sat up at the edge of the bed, mattress creaking as he sat down next to her.
“Can’t sleep, Mulder?”
He shook his head and rubbed his face. The heels of his palms pressed into his eyes and he let out a deep breath before his hands fell to his lap. “I owe you an apology, Scully.”
Her eyebrows knotted, “For what?”
“You were right, about my connection to this case. I shouldn't have snapped at you.” His eyes were gazing down at his hands, so she took one in hers.
After a beat, “You don’t owe me anything. Your ability to connect with Lucy led us to Amy. You saved her life.”
He was silent for a few moments, muscles of his jaw working. His chin dropped to his chest and he whispered, “But not Lucy’s.”
She nodded, looked down at his large hand half covered by hers, and squeezed. Her weight fell against his shoulder and she felt the reassuring rise and fall of his breath. “You did more for her than anyone else would have. You believed in her when no one else did. Even me.”
He nodded almost imperceptibly, lost in his own mind. She imagined the swirling thoughts behind his eyes, shadowed from her now. For a moment she saw him simultaneously as the boy trying to put his family back together and the man trying to keep it from happening to anyone else, and an ache settled just under her sternum.
“I owe you the apology, Mulder. I don’t understand Lucy’s connection to Amy. Maybe it’s not for me to understand.” She rubbed the back of his hand with her thumb. “But you did. And even if I can’t understand it, I should have understood you. I’m sorry.”
His expression didn’t change, but she felt his shoulders slack a bit, and he finally squeezed back. He stifled a yawn and rubbed his eyes with his free hand. He must be exhausted.
She ventured, “I’m going to try to sleep, do you want to stay for a bit?”
He looked up with surprise, but responded “Yeah. If that’s all right?”
She swung her legs back under the sheets to lay back, and pulled the blankets on the other side of the bed down to make room for him, motioning for him to settle in next to her. He hesitated a moment but walked around to the other side and slipped under the sheets. He rolled to his side to face her, curling up slightly, and she rolled to face him. Mere inches separated her face from his in the dark and despite the damp chill of the room she could feel the warmth radiating off of him. His eyes closed and he worried his lower lip with his teeth. She was about to close her own eyes when he spoke.
“It’s been twenty-two years. I don’t know where she is, or what really happened to her. What might still be happening to her. Chances are better than not that when…if…I find her, she’ll…” he trailed off. He took a steadying breath. “She could be like Lucy was, Scully. Barely able to speak, barely able to function, terrified.”
She breathed in sharply. He’d devoted so much of his life to finding his sister, but what would he do if he actually found her after this long? Who would Samantha Mulder be now? The chances of her being alive, much less well, had always been miniscule in her estimation. She’d never, ever admit this to him. And now that he suspected his own parents had a hand in it? There were some hopes too sacred to dash.
His brow furrowed, “I’m not stupid, Scully.”
“I’d never think that, Mulder.”
He continued, “I know she’s out there. After everything I’ve seen, the women we found, the things my father said…but I can’t kid myself that she’ll just come home like nothing ever happened. Best case scenario, she’s somehow healthy and happy but she doesn’t want to be found. Worst case…”
His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “Worst case, she may be better off dead.”
He opened his eyes and looked straight at her for the first time, hope and dread mingled together. “I just need to believe that she's not a lost cause. That she's still worth it. No one thought Lucy was worth damn. So I had to, because if she was, so is Sam.”
She couldn't stop herself from reaching for him then, cradling his cheek in her hand. He looked away but sighed into her touch, stubble rough against her palm. He crushed her into a tight embrace with his head buried in her shoulder and they lay together sharing the same air. She scratched lazy circles around the back of his neck while his arms trembled around her.
She murmured her promise into the crook of neck, “I know you’ll find the truth. No matter what that is. And when you do, you won’t face it alone.”
His body relaxed into hers, solid and still, and she stroked the silk of his hair for who knew how long. His breath slowed, and she shifted in his arms to settle into her pillow. It didn’t even occur to her to feel awkward about embracing her partner in the dim sodium light through cheap motel curtains. These places, these moments were only for them. Tomorrow they wouldn’t talk about it, he’d slip back to his room and they’d fly back to the routine, but she’d remember his arms around her and his soul in her hands. She’d care for it with everything she had.
Before she slipped into sleep, she whispered, “Mulder?”
She felt more than heard his “Mm?” in response.
Her lips brushed the shell of his ear, “You’re worth it, too.”