Chapter Text
When Mulder came back, he realised he was missing a few things. Scully had taken to wearing his watch when he was gone and he never asked for it back. He liked to look at her small wrist and see it there, like an oversized badge of honour. At times he wondered if it felt like a shackle to her. If her loyalty to him was keeping her prisoner from the life she could’ve had.
A life with William, for example. A life that didn’t involve dyeing her hair and changing her name and giving up their child.
When Mulder came back he was missing a son. He was also missing the words to tell her that he could forgive her but that he couldn’t make the tightness in his chest go away. Not in him and not in her. That no matter how fiercely they clung to each other in search of release and comfort, the loss of William would always feel akin to the pain of a phantom limb.
Of course most things of his were missing. She had taken essentials and had packed like the pro that she was. From his apartment, she had packed his basics, toiletries, his picture with Samantha and a well-worn copy of her Einstein Twin Paradox thesis. She had rolled her eyes and signed it once at his bidding, while he joked that he’d someday sell it for good money: an autographed copy of Dana Scully’s first publication. Imagine that.
He didn’t have the heart to ask her about his NY Knicks sweatshirt. It wasn’t that he necessarily wanted to wear it, but some of his fondest memories were of Scully slipping it over her naked body to pad into the kitchen and brew the coffee. He liked to think back on the times he had put the hood over her head when it was cold, and her face got lost within the depths of the fabric. He had cupped her face and brought his ridiculous nose against her beautiful one. Eskimo kisses for an eskimo girl.
She pretended that she didn’t know he’d noticed the sweatshirt’s absence. She didn’t have the heart to tell him that when she gave William up, she had swaddled him in that sweatshirt. That she had made the little bundle so he would have something that smelled of his parents. So he would know what team to root for while he was growing up, without them.