FIC: The Twelfth of December (The X-Files, 1/1)

[maidenjedi]

TITLE: The Twelfth of December
AUTHOR: Maidenjedi
FANDOM: The X-Files
RATING: R
SPOILERS: Whole series up for grabs.
DISCLAIMER: Not my characters, my concept, or my show. Damn it.

SUMMARY: What happened when it ended.

NOTES:  This entire concept came from a comment timesink made in the wake of "My Struggle."  Headcanon developed, fic resulted.  Fandom is a wonderful place to play.

--

Under the cut, or on AO3.

She awoke when the bed grew cold, and knew only vaguely that he was not there. She rolled over and saw the time - it was the middle of the night - and she sat up, blinking back sleep. "Mulder?" she called out.

When he did not answer, she went to look, and saw him in the moonlight, eyes fixed on the sky.

-

He stood out in what passed for a yard, that expanse of unkempt grass and brush, and looked up at the sky. He'd been standing in that position for an hour, shifting only to scan different stars, other constellations.

"Come on," he whispered. "Come on."

It was one o'clock in the morning, on December 12, 2012.

And Fox Mulder awaited the end of the world clad in his underwear, staring at an empty sky.

-

It had been years since Dana Scully feared for her life.

They'd run until they were told it was safe. And it was. The fear didn't fade overnight; she'd carried the stiletto in her pocket, then her purse, then only at night. It was in her glove compartment until the spring of 2010, when she'd finally had to get a new car, and then it ended up in the junk drawer in the kitchen she shared with Mulder.

Mulder carried his for much longer. In fact, he never put it away.

Routine had made her soft, he said once, when they were fighting. Had she truly forgotten all she'd seen, all they'd witnessed?

When his fingers went for the scars he bore from his abduction, she clenched her fist to keep from slapping him.

Instead, she spoke, quietly, deadly. "Not a day goes by, Mulder. Not a day goes by. But I refuse to live my life in fear of something that may never happen."

"They're real, Scully," he replied. "You know they are."

"They are," she consented, as she turned away. "But they are not the only real things."

-

A year earlier, during a particularly content stretch of their lives, they sat up listening to old records and laughing over teenage stories.

It was a rare night. They made love and stayed up late, so late they finally decided to stay up and watch the sunrise.

And it was Scully, she would painfully remember, who brought it all up again.

"It's over, Mulder. I really believe that."

His gaze didn't darken immediately. He smiled at her, misunderstanding. "Sunrise is usually thought of as a beginning, you know. Dawn, new day?"

She returned his smile. "Yes, exactly. A new day. A beginning. Mulder...."

He got it then, in her tone. He sat back, leaning away from her. "Scully, I...no. It isn't. This is...the calm. The calm before the storm." He was drunk, sleepy and fighting it. But he was serious. "They are coming, you know. We had, we have, a date. We know when. The countdown...."

Hurt, she looked him in the eye and shook her head.

They came back from that, didn't talk about it. But Mulder pulled back, a little more all the time, and Scully went to work every day and made plans that Mulder would pretend not to hear, would never take part in.

He withdrew to his world.

She broke forth into hers.

-

"Mulder, what are you doing out here? It's after midnight and it's cold. You're not even wearing pants."

She knew, though. She knew well why he was out here.

"Scully, look." He pointed to a star, some stars. She didn't know. There wasn't anything new to see.

"That could be. That light there. It could be."

"That's a satellite, Mulder." She was becoming alarmed. "Come inside."

"No, no, I want to see it myself. I want to know."

Not believe. Know. He was already a believer, after all, and all he wanted was that final proof.

"We need to go inside."

"Scully, no."

"Mulder...."

"There isn't a safe place, don't you know that? It's over, today, we were told it would be today. Inside, outside, they'll come for us and nowhere is safe."

He was grinning.

She stepped back, toward the house, wondering where her weapon was, whether or not she had a syringe for that vial she'd brought home two weeks ago. She hadn't wanted to, but there had been mornings, late nights, Mulder was slipping, and he wouldn't listen, and he'd broken things....

He was going mad.

"Scully, stay." His voice broke, mood changed. He was manic, and she was scared for him.

She stopped.

"Mulder, if there is no safe place, at least let's spend this time inside where it’s warm. Will you come with me?"

She held out her hand.

He looked up at the sky, and screamed. He fell to his knees, sobbing.

Scully ran to him then, put her hands on his shoulders, mimicking countless times in their history when she'd had to do this very thing, to save him from injury, to convince him to move. To comfort him.

She didn't know what she was doing now.

"It's over," he said hoarsely. "It's over."

He repeated it several times, before his voice faded, and the sobs subsided. Scully pulled on his hand, guiding him to stand, and he followed.

He followed her inside. She gave him water, and something to swallow. Valium. He complied, and she led him to the couch. He was asleep before he could speak again.

Scully stayed up all night, in a chair more than an arm's length from the couch. She held her phone in one hand and in her lap lay her gun.

-

He woke late in the morning. Scully had called in to work, claiming a stomach virus. As the day went on, she wouldn't feel like such a liar.

Mulder paced, and spoke several times of packing the car, getting out. Scully talked him down, working to keep him calm. She didn't contradict him again, and when he repeated the date and the assurances they had that the world would end this very day, that aliens would invade and it would all end, she nodded and said nothing at all.

"I want to believe," he said as the day waned. He was looking out the window, eyes searching for something he couldn't even define.

-

Scully was exhausted. She hadn't dared sleep, and got through the day on coffee. She knew better, of course, and rued her decision bitterly as her hands shook and her stomach rolled.

It was after ten o'clock. The day had been an unacknowledged standoff between them. When the sun set, Mulder's agitation had become so palatable, actually taking up space between them, that Scully suggested a walk. They returned after an hour, both hungry, neither able to eat, but standing in the kitchen, taking turns looking in the cabinets or the refrigerator.

Mulder stopped his endless pacing, and took up a bottle of whiskey. He poured a glass and didn't drink it.

Scully sat at their kitchen table, and Mulder sat across from her. They didn't speak. After some time, Scully got up for a glass of her own, and poured herself two fingers of whiskey.

She drank it off, and poured a smaller glass, and sat back at her place at the other side of the table.

Mulder's head was in his hands, and when he finally spoke, it was muffled.

"It isn't happening."

Scully sighed, staring into her glass.

Truth be told, part of her wanted it to be true. If the world ended today, everything she'd seen would be validated. It might be worth the cost, just to know they hadn't been lied to in the end. To know that as an investigator, she hadn't been a complete failure.

And she wanted to believe that Mulder wasn't so very, horribly wrong.

"It isn't," she said. "It isn't going to happen."

"Oh, God," he moaned, now hitting his forehead on the table. "What...what am I going to do?"

He was broken, unfamiliar to Scully. She reached out, tentatively, across the table - they had not touched once the entire day, which had to be the first time in longer than she could remember - and before her fingers reached him he lashed out, knocking his glass across the room. She recoiled and stood up, behind her chair.

Mulder stuck his hands in his hair, rubbed down his face. He looked up at the ceiling and shouted.

"That son of a bitch!"

Which one? Scully thought, and she knew it didn't matter.

He hit walls, the cabinets. He screamed and he raged, though nothing much was coherent. Scully couldn't get past him, so she stood back, ready to hit him if she had to, but he wasn't coming near her, he hardly saw her.

"All of those years, all that work, and everything we saw. It didn't matter, none of it. We were lied to!"

It was all familiar, every word. How many times were they led right to an answer, only to have it pulled away, to be sent far away or left standing in ash? Scully closed her eyes and prayed.

Mulder picked up the whiskey bottle and threw it against the wall. Scully's eyes flew open and she watched the pieces fall, the liquid splash and stain, and before the last shard of glass hit the floor, she knew she was done.

She left the room, and Mulder huddled on the floor, his flash of rage spent.

-

Their routine - Scully's routine - was shattered for the time being. She had to take some time off, she told the higher-ups at Our Lady of Sorrows that she was owed it anyway, and that was true. She told them she was going on a vacation, and that wasn't at all true.

On December 15, she sat down with Mulder on the couch.

Not their couch anymore, she'd had to tell herself.

"Mulder, you need help."

It was undeniable. In three days, he hadn't touched food, and barely slept unless it was as passed-out drunk. He hadn't come to their bed - not that she was keen on him doing so just now - and in daylight, spent his time combing through his files and notes, sipping on whiskey, trying to find where he'd gone wrong.

"Scully, I..."

"No, Mulder. Will you get help? Will you get up, get out, and see someone?"

He looked at her as if betrayed.

"There's nothing wrong with me, Scully."

Her eyes flashed and he winced. "Mulder, that's not true. You haven't eaten. You stare at those old papers all day. You're shaking now, probably because I watered down the whiskey" - at this, he narrowed his eyes - "and you haven't slept. I'm worried about you, you know."

She sighed, and stood up, turning away from him.

"Whether they lied or they got it wrong, or they never knew anything in the first place. It isn't happening, Mulder. It was never going to."

She turned back to face him, tears in her eyes.

"Your obsession, Mulder. Yours. It was never mine. And I am watching it consume you all over again."

"Scully, no. Don't do this." He stood up and reached for her.

She stepped away, and the tears fell down her cheeks.

"I will not watch you do this. You won't talk to me, you won't listen to anything I've said."

"Scully, listen, you have to listen..."

"No!" Mulder's jaw snapped shut on his rebuttal. Scully was giving no quarter. "We have gone over it so many times. I know what I saw, and what I believe. We lost...I lost so much to this already. Can't you see that? Mulder? Can't you?"

They stood at odds, neither moving, tears staining both their faces. Mulder's shaking was visible, and it tore at Scully to see him. She doubted, oh, she doubted. She wanted to stay, no matter what he'd done or not done.

"I will stay, Mulder, if you'll come with me. Back out there, and we'll get help."

She stretched out her hand.

Mulder squeezed his eyes shut, and before he said anything, Scully knew, and dropped her hand.

She drew in a shaky breath. "It's over, Mulder. I have to get away from the...the stranglehold all of this has, the hold it has on our very existence."

And Dana Scully walked out.

-

It was spring in 2012, and December was far away, further from his thoughts than it would ever be. Mulder stood in a field not far from the house, staring up at the sky.

Sometimes he thought they would be peaceful, when they came. Here to help, not to hurt. Maybe it had been man who had corrupted the technology they found after all, and maybe they were coming to change all that, to correct them.

On bright, beautiful days when lavender was in the air, days like this one, Mulder could believe in safety, in peace.

He could believe in Scully.

He went home and told her all of that, and didn't see her face when he told her, he sometimes thought he could welcome the end. And he wanted to make the most of the coming year.

He kissed her and loved her, and she responded, she loved him back. She wanted to believe.

And it was the last night they had when either believed it would all end well.

-