TITLE: One Minute In A Year
AUTHOR: JLB
SPOILERS: This is a post "Three Words" story.  Spoilers up to and including 
that episode.
CLASSIFICATION: M/S, A, V
FEEDBACK: Amory20@aol.com
SUMMARY: The world discussed over apple juice.
DISCLAIMER: I don't own M&S.  CC, 1013, and FOX have that honor.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I really haven't been inspired to write a post-ep story in a 
long time, but I have to admit that I was quite taken aback by some of the 
reaction to Mulder's behavior in "Three Words."  Regardless of whether he 
would be clinically diagnosed with PTSD, the man has suffered through a 
horrific ordeal -- I think we need to cut him some slack.  More than that 
though, I think Scully understood what he was going through, so while she may 
have been hurt by his behavior, I certainly don't think she blamed him for 
it.  Of course, that's just my take.  Let me know what you think.


One Minute In A Year by JLB


"One writes of scars healed, a loose parallel to the pathology of the skin, 
but there is no such thing in the life of the individual.  There are open 
wounds, shrunk sometimes to the size of a pin-prick but wounds still.  The 
marks of suffering are more comparable to the loss of a finger, or the sight 
of an eye.  We may not miss them, either, for one minute in a year, but if we 
should there is nothing to be done about it."
                            -- F. Scott Fitzgerald, TENDER IS THE NIGHT



For once, the world of her dreams is bright, colored with deep apple reds, 
soothing ocean blues, and shiny, crisp golds.  It is like looking through a 
kaleidoscope, all broken bits of rainbow, fitted together in a seamless 
blanket of diamonds and triangles.

Of course, it doesn't last long.  Like a bubble breaking, the dream falls 
away in an instant, and there is nothing left but blackness.  

When she opens her eyes, the only color Scully sees is the angry, flashing 
red of her alarm clock as its digits slowly change position. It's not even 
five a.m. but she is suddenly wide-awake and alert, the need to use the 
bathroom and a desperate thirst for apple juice battling for supremacy inside 
her.

This last month or so, she's been lucky to get a couple of consecutive hours 
of sleep at most, before her bladder nudges her awake or an ache in the side 
she's sleeping on forces her to roll over and readjust herself.  Tonight, 
though, the clock tells her that she's managed almost four straight hours 
without interruption, and the only thing that Scully can attribute it to is 
the stress of the past few days, excitement and fear wearing her out, making 
it easy to press her face into a soft pillow and forget the world for several 
hours, even as its demands seem to grow louder and louder.  

Now the bathroom quickly becomes top priority as the baby shifts and the 
pressure on her bladder increases.

"Patience," she mutters as she strokes her stomach.  "Give me a chance."

Scully is familiar with the habit of talking to the baby, or herself if she's 
honest about it, and the sound of her own voice, hushed and gentle, is 
comforting in the dark bedroom.  In the last few weeks, she has also gotten 
quite good at rolling herself off the mattress with minimal fuss, and she 
takes a certain amount of pride in this -- that however changed it may be, 
she still knows her own body, can still maneuver through the darkness without 
falling or tripping, without needing someone's assistance. That too is a 
comfort to her, considering how confused the rest of her life is right now, 
how strange and foreign it seems.

When she gets to the bathroom mirror, her face is splotchy and red, flushed 
with sleep, and her hair is a rumpled, stringy mess. Even her eyes tell a 
story as they stare back at her, puffy and hooded.  Her appearance is just 
one more thing that she has little control over these days, so she tries to 
let it go, shake it off, as she flips the light switch and her image become 
hazy and shadowed, almost featureless, in the dark glass.


Outside her bedroom, the hallway is cool, and she moves slowly toward the 
kitchen, on bare feet, anticipating the crisp, sweet taste of cold juice.  
It's her thirst and the dull, gray shadows covering the entire apartment that 
distract her, so much so that she almost misses him, sitting slumped and 
quiet on the end of the sofa, a pillow pressed to his lap.  

When she does notice him, it's only because of the quick burst of light that 
snaps off his watch and flashes across her stomach like a spotlight as he 
moves his arm.


"Mulder?"

He sits up slowly, still in his leather jacket, looking tired and unwashed, 
stubble dark along his jaw.

"What are you doing up so early?" he asks, his voice perfectly calm and cool 
in the darkness.

She shuffles closer, standing across from him, and leans on an arm chair for 
support.  He hasn't had much sleep himself, if the cold, glazed-over look of 
his eyes and the nervous, twitchy way his hands move across his knees are any 
indication.

"What are you doing here?" she asks, unable to mask her surprise.  "It's not 
even five yet."

He tilts his head back, laying it against the sofa, and purses his lips, as 
if he's carefully considering his response.  There is no mistaking the 
intense way that he studies her, standing as straight and tall as she can 
manage while seven months pregnant and wearing loose, pale blue pajamas.  She 
knows that he's making her wait purposely, for some reason known only to him, 
and she finds herself wondering, for a brief, unforgettable moment, if 
everyone who returns from the dead is this insufferable.  She immediately 
chastises herself for the thought -- how can she be so selfish and petty when 
God saw fit to answer all of her prayers?

His sigh, low and scratchy, gets her attention again, and she watches as he 
leans forward, elbows resting on his knees.


"I thought you said that you wanted to keep an eye on me for a few days," he 
says finally, a teasing lilt in his voice.  He tries to smile, but the curve 
of his mouth is so tight and uneasy that it seems more like a grimace.

She feels silly, like some insecure schoolgirl who needs constant 
reassurance, who needs to know where her quarterback boyfriend is at every 
moment.  When she asked him two days ago, back at his apartment for the first 
time, it was a moment of desperation, a "please stay close for a while, let 
me know where you are and that you're okay, let me get used to the idea that 
you're back and safe" kind of moment.

Scully didn't say those things out loud, of course.  Instead, she spoke in 
the vague, neutral words that they've tossed back and forth between them for 
years.  The change was in the asking itself, that despite the way she phrased 
it, she did voice her need.  In a way, it was a silly thing to have to ask 
for, considering what they had been to one another before his abduction, but 
that was a different world.  A world where Mulder wasn't some modern-day 
Lazarus with scars crisscrossing his body like railroad tracks, and she 
wasn't about to give up her gun and badge for diapers and a bottle.

She'd been nervous asking him, because of the sad stare he'd been throwing at 
her all day, because of the cold, steady beat of his voice as he spoke, but 
Mulder just nodded solemnly at the request. When he slept beside her that 
night in his bed, there was a vast stretch of mattress between them, Mulder's 
body not touching hers, but the bed was full and warm for the first time in 
months so there was nothing she could complain about in good conscience.
 
And yesterday afternoon, he almost seemed like himself, following her back to 
her apartment, seemingly content to camp out there for a while, playing 
secret agent man just like the old days.

Mulder had never slept in her bed -- that thought taunted her without mercy 
in the months that he was gone.  The few scattered nights that they'd shared 
before his disappearance had all been in his warm, dark apartment or small, 
faraway motel rooms.  For some reason, it became vitally important that he 
lie in her crisp white sheets, beneath her pale green comforter, on her 
fluffy, down-filled pillows, even if it was only once.

Last night, after all the drama and intrigue and danger, Scully thought she 
was going to get her wish, finally have Mulder warm and safe in her big bed.  
But when she heard the front door close, just as she was washing her face, 
she didn't bother to hide the tears from herself.  She couldn't have fooled 
anyone then.

"I thought you'd gone," she tells him, playing with the blue fringe on a 
throw pillow.  "I heard you leave while I was getting changed."

She forces herself to look up, and he stares back with dark, knowing eyes.

"I went for a walk.  Wanted to think for a while."

She notices now that while his jacket is still on, he's taken off his boots, 
and they lean crookedly against one another beside the sofa.  His toes wiggle 
in worn gray socks, and the baby suddenly kicks, in what Scully swears is a 
sympathetic movement.  She tries not to let the action show on her face, 
casually slipping a hand down to her stomach to pat it once, quickly.

"You went for a walk after midnight?"  

She knows that her voice must sound shrill, like some hysterical housewife, 
but after last night, after sitting in the car, helpless, praying once again 
that Mulder would pull through somehow, she can't help herself.

"It's been a while since I've seen this particular scenery." He smiles, in an 
old, goofy way that she remembers.  "Besides, I'm still an armed man."  He 
pats the gun resting at his hip, a heavy, gleaming reminder of all the 
dangers that their world still holds.

It is easy for Scully to go through the motions and nod as she tries to 
project an air of acceptance, but she still finds the idea of him wandering 
the streets of Georgetown, or anywhere for that matter, in the middle of the 
night vaguely disturbing.  You've just risen from the dead, Mulder, she thi
nks, can't you be a little bit more careful with your life?

On the sofa, he shifts uncomfortably, almost as if he's read her thoughts, 
and his knee bumps the coffee table, knocking over a stack of magazines.  
They fan out like a deck of cards, and he and Scully both stare at them for a 
moment, unwilling to meet one another's eyes.

"If you want me to go..." Mulder says, gesturing to the door.

"Of course not," she assures him.  "No."

She smoothes a hand over her stomach in slow circles, and can't help noticing 
that Mulder follows the movement as if mesmerized, as if there was light 
flowing from her fingertips, sparking through the air.  

"You could have come..." she starts to say, imagining Mulder crawling into 
bed beside her in the middle of the night, at how wonderfully surprised she 
would have been.

He cuts her off with a shake of his head.  

"I didn't want to wake you."

They are both still focused on her stomach, Scully rubbing it and Mulder 
staring as if he expects an alien to burst through it and start tap dancing 
across her living room in a top hat and tails.  She empathizes -- she's had 
that dream before -- but she can't tell him that now.  It doesn't seem 
appropriate somehow.

When he finally looks up from her stomach and meets her eyes, Scully has 
trouble standing still.

"I was going to get something to drink," she tells him, pointing absently 
toward the kitchen.  "Want to join me?"

"Sure."

Yawning, Mulder rises from the sofa, and stretches his arms over his head.  
She hears his joints crack, loud as a gunshot, and panics for a moment, 
convinced that his bones will crumble and turn to dust, chalky white powder 
filling his dark leather jacket as it lies in a heap on her living room rug. 
She hurries to the kitchen without looking back, feeling Mulder as he trails 
behind her, slowing his pace to give her space.  

There's too much damn space, she thinks.  Too much room to doubt.

In the kitchen, the bright light from the refrigerator makes Scully squint, 
and she hears a chair scrape across the floor as Mulder sits down at the 
kitchen table.  There are also the soft, creaky sounds of his jacket 
shifting, and she closes her eyes, imagining him as he moves behind her, the 
hard, black shine of eyes and tightly drawn line of his mouth.

"Do you want me to hang your jacket?" she asks without turning to him.  She 
reaches inside the refrigerator for the jug of apple juice, heavy and cold as 
she lugs it from the shelf.

"It's not necessary," he says quickly, but she hears the jacket shifting 
again, and when she comes to the table, glasses and juice bottle in hand, 
it's hanging on the back of his chair.

The T-shirt he has on is black, faded and tight across his chest, the way he 
always seems to wear them.  Even in the faint light, she can see where it 
clings to his body, how it moves with him.  All recently dead men should look 
this good, she thinks, smiling in secret as she places the juice and a glass 
in front of him. 

The bottle spins around, a bright swirl of golden light shifting across the 
kitchen, as Mulder tries to read the label.  He lets out a quick rush of 
breath that is almost a laugh.

"You've brought out the good stuff, I see."

She smiles, not bothering to hide it, as she lowers herself into the chair 
next to him.

"Consider yourself lucky that I'm sharing it with you, Mulder.  It's in 
fairly high demand since I go through a gallon a day."

"I guess that explains what woke you so early."  He smirks, and she is 
riveted to his mouth, the way the corners rise just so, the way his lips 
shine, wet and smooth.  

The little things, she thinks, like the twisting of his mouth as he teases 
her, the softening of his eyes as he laughs.  These are what she has to 
relearn now, what she's forgotten all these months without him.  

She reaches for the juice bottle, and tries to twist the lid off, her hand 
slipping on the metal cap. It is jammed tightly on the bottle, so even when 
she puts her whole arm into it, the lid refuses to budge.  Mulder watches her 
struggle with a decidedly amused expression on his face until Scully finally 
pushes the juice in his direction.  His large hand covers the top of the 
bottle, and with minimal effort, nothing more than a quick twist of his 
wrist, the lid comes free.

"How did you ever get by without me?" Mulder says lightly, head bent as he 
pours juice into her glass.

She listens to the splash, the cold, wet slide of juice into glass.  It is a 
rich, full sound, and Scully wonders why she never noticed it before, why she 
notices it now.

"I was thinking the same thing last night," she says quietly, but Mulder's 
head snaps up from his glass just the same, eyes wide and dark, when he 
realizes that she isn't playing along with his joke.  "Sitting in the car, 
waiting for you, I wondered how I'd been able to...  If I fought you at all 
about getting a hold of that data, about going into that facility, Mulder, it 
was only because I was scared.  Because I'm afraid to lose you again."

He doesn't respond or react in any visible way, continuing to stare at her, 
hot and fierce, as if he's waiting for her to qualify the statement, to 
rationalize it away with the cool, detached control that he's learned to 
expect from her over the years.  

It's impossible to come by these days -- that's what he doesn't understand.  
When he looks at her, Mulder sees what everyone else does -- an incredibly 
strong woman who's made it through almost an entire pregnancy on her own.  
They don't know, Scully thinks.  They don't know how weak she's been, how 
she'd find pencils in his desk and break down, just because they had his 
teeth marks in the soft wood, the gnawed markings of his boredom in the stiff 
eraser tips.  They don't know that she read the e-mails he sent her in the 
last month or so before he disappeared, over and over again, just to try to 
capture the cadence of his speech in the stark, simple lines of writing.  
They don't know that she'd cry in bed at night, with the lights turned low so 
she couldn't see and the stereo tuned to droning talk radio so she wouldn't 
hear, all because her child would never know its father.  

Mulder doesn't know any of this.  He won't know if she doesn't tell him.

"Maybe I haven't done the best job of assuring you of my priorities, Mulder," 
she says in a low, strained voice.  "Because you should know--"

"Scully, no."  He shakes his head.  "I know that you understand what's 
important here.  I don't question that at all."

With a sigh, Mulder presses his mouth against his upper arm, against the dark 
cloth of his shirt while he gathers his thoughts.  When he pulls back, his 
lips leave a shiny, puckered ring on the black material, all juice and 
saliva, bright under the small kitchen light.

"If it's about Doggett," Scully offers tentatively.  "I think he just feels 
that--" 

"It's not about Doggett either," he practically growls.  "He's a stooge, 
Scully.  You say he can be trusted, and maybe that's true.  But if he's dumb 
enough to set us up, then he's a liability all the same."

She watches Mulder take a long drink of juice, studying the way his throat 
contracts as he swallows.  Even that movement seems angry and violent.

"I think you're being a bit harsh, Mulder."

"Maybe so.  See that's the thing they don't tell you about returning from the 
dead."  He smiles, bright white teeth and smooth pink lips.  "You tend to be 
pretty cranky when you're finally dug up."

She doesn't want to hear his jokes, his clever trivializing of what's 
happened to him.  She doesn't want to think of it all so lightly.  She 
doesn't want to think of it all.

Into his glass, Mulder smiles again, his eyes creasing at the corners as he 
takes another small sip of juice.  She tilts her head, and considers him from 
a new angle, but he still looks the same, bright and larger than life.

"Is that what you thought about on your walk?" she asks as she traces the rim 
of her glass, fingers shaking. 

Mulder nods, head barely moving, and bites at his lip, a sign of 
contemplation, Scully remembers clearly.

It's been six months since she last kissed him -- this thought comes unbidden 
to her mind, and roams through as if it own the place.  His lips are wet now, 
and his mouth would taste all tart and sweet, like apples.  She licks her own 
lips to try to simulate the flavor.

"Among other things," he says, tilting his glass on an angle, the juice 
coming close to spilling over the edge.

In one quick gulp, Scully downs half her juice, and there is a cold burn as 
it eases its way down her throat.  Mulder watches her, fidgeting with the 
corner of a place mat.

"I've got a lot to think about these days," he says flatly, as if this were 
news to her.

Better than anyone, Scully knows that the world is transformed.  She felt it 
herself the day a young ER doctor told her that she was pregnant, and she 
still feels it, even though she's had months to get used to the idea, to get 
used to Doggett and a second desk in the basement.  

She looks down into her glass, at the swirling gold liquid, as if there might 
be answers for them there.   

"I'm not myself, Scully," Mulder murmurs in a thin voice.  "You can feel that 
as well as I can."

She looks up to see his long fingers scratch through his hair, rough and 
without care.  She washed his hair once, months ago in an L.A. hotel room, 
with fancy shampoo, scented with jasmine.  They sat pressed together in a 
sunken bathtub, giddy with champagne and the heat of one another's bodies, as 
she soaped his hair and massaged his scalp.

"I'm confident enough in my masculinity to have hair that smells like a 
girl's," he told her, in a deep, drunken voice, as she dripped handfuls of 
warm water over his head again and again.

Months ago, years ago -- what's the difference at this point?  She won't even 
allow herself to think about getting back there, to that place, to those 
people they once were.  It won't do Mulder any good.  It won't do their child 
any good. 

"Maybe it's my priorities that are the problem," he says, fiddling with a zip 
disk that one of the Gunmen must have left behind, his finger smoothing along 
a deep crack in the plastic case.

"Mulder, whatever you may think, your first priority should be your 
recovery," she tells him.  "And you know I don't just mean physically."

"Scully, you're..." he stammers, looking quickly at her stomach. "Jesus, I 
can't even say the word.  It's been a week and I still can't say the damn 
word."

He looks panicked, his eyes wide and unfocused.

"Because if I say the word ... if I say the word, Scully, it becomes real, 
and I'm just not ready... I'm not sure I can believe it's real just yet."

"I know," she nods, feeling tears prick at her eyes.  "I know.  I felt the 
same way for a long time.  It's a lot to get used to, but it'll wait until 
you're ready."

"Really?" he asks, lifting his eyebrow in what can only be called skepticism. 
 His eyes focus on her stomach.

She lowers her head, letting her hair cover her face. "What I mean is, I'll 
wait.  I can wait."  

Without hesitation, he takes her hand, twining his fingers with hers.  It is 
the first time he's reached out for her in days, and she closes her eyes 
before tears can start their burn.

"Scully--"

"Mulder..."  She squeezes his hand, and opens her eyes, smiling softly.  
"Whenever you're ready."

He smiles, a bit unsure, and nods.  Right now, he can have his doubts.  She 
believes enough for the both of them.

They're both quiet for a moment, and Mulder shifts in his chair, glancing 
quickly at his watch.

"Look at that," he says softly.  "It's only after five now.  The day's barely 
begun."

"Yeah," she yawns. "I think I'm going to try to sleep for another couple of 
hours." 

She thinks of inviting him to join her, of how wonderful it would feel to 
curl up in bed with Mulder pressed against her back.  But she doesn't say a 
word, watching Mulder as he stands and slides back into his jacket.

"Yeah, you should," he says.  "You can use the rest."

"What are you..."

"I think I'll head home for a while."  He smiles slyly.  "Reacquaint myself 
with the old habitat."

"Well, at least I lived to see your apartment clean once."  She hoists 
herself out of the chair, and takes their glasses to the sink.

"You and me both, Scully," he calls from the living room, where she can see 
him lacing up his boots. 

When she turns the faucet off, Mulder's on his way to the door, taking slow, 
careful steps, almost as if he's unaccustomed to walking on solid ground.  
She follows him, bracing a hand against her lower back to massage the ache 
there.

At the door, they both stop, looking down at their feet with awkward 
attention.  She still doesn't want to let him out of her sight, let him walk 
away, even if he'll only be across town, safe and sound in his own apartment. 
 But she has to let him go -- it's what he needs right now.  

"You're all right getting home?" Scully asks, and immediately she wants to 
slap herself.  He's a grown man, not a child or an invalid, and he needs to 
prove to himself that's he still able to stand on his own, prove to her that 
he can be the man she knew.

He frowns, and kicks lightly at the door frame with the tip of his boot.  
"I'm pretty sure I still remember the way, Scully."

"Right."  She takes a step back into the living room as he opens the door.  
"Okay."

In front of him, the hallway is quiet, cool and dark in the early morning, 
and Mulder turns back to her quickly, laying a hand on her shoulder, rubbing 
her through the satin of her pajamas.  

"I'll see you later," he tells her, stepping over the threshold. 

"Take care, Mulder."

He nods, a quick smile brightening his eyes.  "You too, Scully."

Down the hallway, he disappears, turning a dark corner, but Scully still 
waits a moment before closing her door.  


The End