Untitled - Scenes for Quiescence by Jesemie's Evil Twin (PG-13)

[tree]

Fandom: THE X FILES
Pairing: Mulder/Scully
Author on LJ: jetfic
Author Website: see above
Why this must be read:

On the surface this seems much like a number of other post-The Truth fics: Mulder and Scully on the run with William, Mulder receiving messages from the dead. But in JET's hands these parts combined to make an altogether new and beautiful whole. The small details, the richness of description, the love and the longing, the desperation, the hope. It is one part story and two parts feeling and all painfully lovely.

The alley was slimy with rain, leaves, moss, trash, and the bird was huddled against the garage wall. She picked it up and it began to squeak, a constant terrible bleat of sorrow and alarm. Its feathers were wet fuzz, spread out like ink leaking into the crevices of her palms.

A nest was visible, built between pipes that connected the buildings; if there was a mother bird, she was choosing to disregard her daughter's keening.

The baby's eyes never shifted to Scully's, but the heartbeat beneath its delicate bones was a fast flutter, an inexplicable pulse in a broken body. There was no place to take the bird where it would be safe, no shelter as rain poured. She couldn't leave it to die and she had to, forced herself to put the bird on the sole patch of grass that grew through the pavement cracks.

She walked out of the alley, the weakening screech trailing her, smearing all other noise until it was static in her head.

The heartbeat still flutters in her hands as she wakes, rain drumming the roof.

It takes probably ten minutes before she notices Mulder isn't in the bed with her. She goes to William's room and finds them both, William fast asleep, curled in a ball, Mulder on the floor beside the bed, his hand on William's head.

Mulder shifts, and she sits beside him. He looks at her and the haunted hollows beneath his eyes show her it's happened again, his dreams and hers bleeding together. This, she thinks, was a memory, something that happened to him while he was on the run, something he will never tell aloud.

"He's fine," Mulder says, voice rough.

"I was just checking on you," she says.

Read Scenes for Quiescence.