In This Silence
By Leyla Harrison

Disclaimer: Mulder and Scully belong to uh, the guy, oh, damn, what is
his name anyhow?  I keep forgetting.
Classification: SRA (translation: short length vignette/story-type
thing, MSR in the background, and lots o' angst)
Rating: PG-13, I guess.  There's one bad word, and that's it.
Spoilers: Requiem, in a vague sort of way.
Summary:  In the aftermath, Scully can't hear anything at all.

Note: This story is the second in a series of three stories, and this
picks up where my previous post-Requiem story, White Wave, leaves off.
And yes, there will be one more story after this.  Thanks to everyone
for the lovely feedback on White Wave.  I even enjoyed the threats I
got, like this one: "Hey you!  If you don't write a sequel to this I'm
gonna (omission – I don't even use language like that!!) every day until
you do."  I've come to expect nothing but the best insanity from you
guys, and you have not disappointed me.  <g>

The longer, final story in this series will be out in early to
mid-August.  This one is a kind of bridge, if you want to call it that,
to tide you over till then.

Thank you: to Sarah for guidance and Glory just for being around.

***

Mulder finally took the baby monitor off the nightstand next to the bed
and put it away.

For weeks I had been lying on my back, staring at the ceiling, and
listening to nothing.  The receiver was on in the other room – in Hope's
room.  But there was no noise coming through the cordless device into my
room.  I kept waiting for something.  A sigh, a rustle of fabrics.  A
little noise to get me on my feet, to let me know that she needed me.

Then one month I noticed that the monitor was gone.  I didn't say
anything to him.  Didn't ask him where he put it.  I changed into my
pajamas and padded off into the kitchen to make more coffee.

It took me three months to deal with Hope's room.  I finally moved the
furniture – the crib, the rocking chair, the changing table – into the
basement, where I have extra storage space.   I spent a late spring
afternoon with the windows open and a roller attached to an extension
pole and I painted the room white again.  The wet paint smoothed easily
over the lemon walls, making them feel sterile and oddly hostile.  I
watched as I moved the rollers over the walls, expecting to hear the
squishing of paint and sponge, but I heard nothing but stillness and
quiet.

When I was finished, I opened the windows to help the paint dry.  I
didn't hear birds.  I didn't hear the rustling of leaves in the trees.
I didn't hear the cars on the road passing by.

All I heard was silence.

When the paint dried, I noticed that the little stars I had stenciled
and painted carefully with thick silver paint long months ago had been
covered, but had not disappeared.  Even with the new paint, the surface
of the wall was raised every so slightly where the stars were and I was
able to tell where each star had been in that room.

I imagined myself blind, walking through the empty room, touching my
fingers to the wall like it was a map.  I could find a cluster of raised
stars at shoulder-level: those had been above the crib.  There was
another cluster just above my hip.  Those had been on the wall near
where the rocking chair was, where I had nestled Hope in my arms and
nursed her.

There are three photos of my daughter.

The hospital took the first set, and they were traditionally horrible.
Snot running down her nose and chin, her face red from crying.  My
mother took the second photo, a nice one of Hope in my arms sitting on
the porch swing over at my mother's house, about three weeks
post-partum.  It was framed by her bedside.

After my mother died, I slipped all of her framed pictures into a bag
and brought them back to my apartment.  I set them all up on the
dresser, a row of the missing and dead.  My father.  My mother and
father at their wedding.  My sister.  My daughter.

The last picture of Hope was one I had taken myself.  She had been
sleeping one morning, her soft, long lashes almost touching her cheeks.
I had been overwhelmed by her beauty, how simple it all was – a child, a
baby, this wondrous miracle.  I gathered my camera and managed to get
the shot without even waking her up.

After the film was developed, I left the picture on the dining room
table where I could see it every day.  Finally I framed it and put it in
the bedroom, so that it was the first thing I saw in the morning and the
last thing I saw before I went to bed.

Each morning and each night I rehearsed what I would tell Mulder when he
came back, when I showed him the picture.

Mulder, this is your child.  This is our baby.  She's perfect, Mulderm
just perfect.  I know you weren't here, but I took this picture, to show
you, to capture it on film, how perfect she was that morning.  How
perfect she is every day.

And then when I had gotten the call that he had been found in Oregon, I
was scared and I didn't even bring the picture to show him anyhow.

***

There are lots of things I don't talk about with Mulder.

***

It's odd, actually, but we don't talk about it, this thing that has
happened with us.  He's all but moved in and yet we've drifted so far
apart it's like we live in different worlds.

We move through the apartment, both of us on our own schedules.  Mine
are slow, almost turtle-like.  I have no reason to hurry to get anywhere
or do anything.  I have a job; somewhere in the back of my mind, I know
that.  My job responsibilities have been reduced dramatically.  I no
longer am needed in the office every day.  I stop and think about this
only when I absolutely have to, and it disgusts me.

I disgust myself.  I am no longer the Dana Scully I thought I was:
strong, professional, able to carry on in the midst of it all.  It was
all a charade.

Mulder's schedules are erratic.  He comes and goes at odd hours.  For
the first time in the years I've known him, Mulder sleeps during the
night.  In the stillness and silence of the apartment, I prowl around,
drinking coffee, sitting in front of my laptop, reading newsgroups and
message boards.  I find myself reading sites that have lists with the
symptoms of clinical depression.

I can't remember how I ended up there.  At the web sites and at the
strange point in my life.

On the nights Mulder's not home, I sleep.  Fifful stretches of twenty or
thrity minutes at a time.  I dream of Hope crying, and then I wake up in
the still of the bedroom.  The silence reverberates through me,
deafening.

Most days, Mulder is out of the apartment.  Following up leads, trying
to make connections. Sometimes he leaves in suits and ties, and comes
back rumpled and dusty.  Sometimes he leaves in jeans and a t-shirt, off
to an undisclosed location with the Gunmen, or on a mission all his
own.  He doesn't talk to me about strategy or leads.  I don't ask.

When he's gone, I sleep then, for long stretches of time.  I am
dreamless during those hours, but I wake up tangled in the sheets and
for a moment, I am always terrified, and I call out his name, thinking
that maybe he will be there.

Mulder and I inhabit the same living space, but we are hesitant around
each other.  We barely speak; instead using nods and hand gestures and
one word sentences.

Mulder's demons have stopped plaguing him.  No more strange voices and
words shocking me into full awareness.

I cannot think about my mother without completely falling apart.  While
thinking of Hope makes me stony and withdrawn, thoughts of my mother
make me feel like I'm going to scream until I am hoarse, and then I
think I will scream until I have no voice left at all.

Charlie calls me sometimes.  Bill calls less often.  I can't talk to
either of them.  The answering machine keeps busy, taking messages,
beeping and clicking, but I don't hear any of it.

For some reason I think that if my mother was still alive I would be
able to deal with Hope's absence.

Once, in the middle of the night, I thought about it for a quick moment,
but it was too much; a scream rose in my throat and I put my hand over
my mouth to stifle it.  My fingers stayed tight against my own mouth, as
if I were an intruder, telling my victim with actions to stay quiet.  I
pictured my mother's killer coming into her house, putting his hand over
her mouth when she yelled bloody murder, hissing in her ear.  "Sshh," he
said to her.

I bit down on my own hand to keep the scream from waking Mulder at four
in the morning.  I tasted blood.  The room stayed silent.  I didn't wake
Mulder.

Right now, he and I are two islands.  We can't go on like this.  We're
together but apart.

***

"Mulder?" I ask him in the semi-darkness of the bedroom late one night.
He's been home for about twenty minutes and looks tired.  I should hold
him, comfort him.  I can't do either, so I just sit quietly.

He mumbles something; an acknowledgment that he's heard me.

"Any news?" I ask.  He turns to look at me from his side of the bed
where he's pulling a pair of shorts on.  He's getting ready for bed.
I'm on my eighth cup of coffee of the evening.  I'm fascinated by the
coffee machine these days.  I watch it percolate and it doesn't make a
sound.

Mulder's eyes are dark and yet they glitter from the lamplight.  "No,"
he says simply.  "Nothing."

I sit down on the bed, and he lies down and pulls the sheets up to his
neck, rolling onto his side, away from me.

I wait.

He turns over after a long few minutes and sits up.  "What is it,
Scully?" he asks.  "What?"

I'm weary in spite of the coffee.  "We're not going to find her, are
we," I say dully, lowering my head and surrendering to the knowledge of
what I don't want to face every day.

I hear fabric rustling, and I raise my eyes to see Mulder's hands
clutching fistfuls of the sheets, flexing, releasing.

"Don't," Mulder says, his voice low, angry.

"Mulder, we have to be reasonable," I tell him.  "We have to – "

"I said, don't, Scully."  This time his voice is just a fraction louder,
but if I wasn't sitting so close I wouldn't be able to hear him.  "Don't
say that.  Don't."

"But – "

"Don't!" he explodes, jumping out of bed, throwing the sheets back.  His
voice is so loud.  It scares me.  "Jesus Christ!  Stop fucking saying
that!"

He sees the look of shock on my face, my mouth hanging open, and his
face goes slack and his eyes go wide, and he rushes from the room.

I sit there on the bed.  It is so quiet.

***

Thirty minutes later, I get up and find Mulder in the bathroom, sitting
on the floor, his back against the tub, his head buried in a mass of
knees and arms.  I sit down on the cold tiles next to him.  He lifts his
head, and his face is tear-stained and grim.

"I'm scared we're never going to find her," he tells me.  "I'm scared
that she's gone forever.  I can't go through that again.  I never even
got a chance to know her, Scully.  To hold her.  Sometimes I can't bear
it.  I see a woman with a baby on the street and I just want to scream
and run in the other direction.  Sometimes it's so bad that I get
anxiety attacks over it.  I can't breathe, my heart pounds, I'm clammy
and nauseous."  His words tumble out after months of silence and I take
his hand, holding it in my own.  I watch his collapse and can feel mine
coming.

His skin is cool and dry, and his fingers lace through mine in a
familiar gesture, and I feel a rush of safety for the first time since
before he disappeared.

"What are you most afraid of, Scully?" he asks me quietly.

So many words came out of his mouth, so much noise that I'm not used to
anymore.  I stare at the bathroom wall directly opposite me, unable to
meet his gaze.  Minutes pass.  I count the large square ivory tiles.
Forty-two rows across.   Seventy-nine rows from floor to ceiling.

"Scully?" he asks again.

"I'm afraid that I don't remember what she looks like," I murmur.

"We have the pictures," he says.

"I only remember when I look at the pictures, Mulder.  When I'm not
looking at them she just...becomes a blur.  I can't remember her face.
Her eyes.  Her chin.  Her fingers.  None of it."  The admission makes me
feel lighter, but more vulnerable.  "I'm her mother, Mulder.  Her
mother.  How could I forget that?  How?"

Mulder's fingers stroke my hand lightly.

"My mother died for nothing," I tell him.  "For nothing.  She's gone,
Mulder.  Gone."  I feel like I am losing my ability to form sentences
and my heart is pounding.  I can feel it but I head nothing.

I listen.  I can hear the sound of my own hitching breaths, the noise I
make when I'm going to cry, and I can her Mulder's breathing too.

Then I hear both sounds fade and there's nothing, just silence filling
my ears.  Everything – my mother, Mulder, Hope – gone.  I panic, my
hands clutching at Mulder.  I've gone deaf.

Moments later when the sound of my sobs fill the room, bouncing off each
row of tiles from floor to ceiling, from one wall to the next wall to
the next wall.  The noise is loud and unrelenting, and I can't stop it.

I'm dimly aware that Mulder is holding me carefully, placing light
kisses on my cheeks, on my forehead, on my lips, on my eyes.  "It's all
right," he tells me.  "It's all right."

As my tears subside, I am suddenly aware of all the sounds that I
haven't heard in months.  The buzz of electricity from the air
conditioning.  The hum of the flourescent light in the bathroom.  The
drip-drop of the faucet which wasn't turned off all the way.

I can hear everything now, clearly.  The sounds Hope made when she
cried, or when she nursed at my breast, the little sucking noise.  I
thought I had lost those things, but they're still with me.

"Let's get some rest," Mulder says to me, and helps me to my feet.  We
go to the bedroom and get into bed.  Even though my body is flooded with
caffiene, I am oddly tired, likely from the crying spell.

Mulder turns off the light – click.  He rolls over to face me, pulling
the sheets around us – rustle, rustle.   "I love you, Scully," he says
to me, and I hear each word so clearly it's as if he's in my head with
me.

I can't fall asleep, I think to myself, but I listen to the sound of his
even breathing, in-out, in-out, in-out, any my eyes slip closed, and I
drift off.

END