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Title: Dead Fish Summary: Another death makes it hard for Scully to move on. Author's notes: This story was inspired by the death of my housemate's fish. I was afraid I was going to have to fish him out of the tank...but his tank mates ate him instead. Many thanks to Logan for the great beta. Scully slipped the key into Mulder's lock. These trips had become a part of her schedule she didn't even think about any longer. At first she had paid the kid on the second floor to come in and feed the fish, but the fact was this was the only place she felt connected to him any longer. She turned on the light and set her purse on the kitchen counter. She felt a slight movement in her abdomen. In the past week she had begun to be able to feel the baby kick. She smiled slightly, then stopped and sighed. It was something else that Mulder was missing. She walked across the room and pulled the blinds open. The sun streamed in, highlighting the dust on the coffee table, desk and couch. It was time to call the Merry Maids again. She picked the fish food up off the shelf and lifted the lid. Shit. Scully set the fish food down and stared into the tank. That damned fish had died. She'd been watching it for a few days now as some disease had clearly taken hold of the poor molly. And now it was here, floating in the tank with all the other fish swimming past it as if nothing had happened. She picked the net up off the bottom shelf and began to dip into the tank, trying to retrieve the dead fish. After a couple of swipes, it finally went belly up in the small green net. Scully pulled the net back, the fish limp in the bottom. Water dripped from the body of the dead fish. As she drew it closer she gagged. Damn him. She carried the fish into the bathroom and unceremoniously dumped him in the toilet. She watched the body slide to the bottom and then, unable to stop it, she was sick, covering the fish with her breakfast. Scully sighed and pushed the handle, flushing the fish and everything else out to the Potomac. She turned to the sink, rinsed her mouth and looked up at her face in the mirror. He was making her old before her time. She raised her right hand up and brushed her hair away from her forehead. Wrinkles were multiplying by the day. Her brow was furrowed even more often now than during all the years of chasing him around after his quest. None of this was fair. It wasn't fair to her. It wasn't fair to Mulder and it wasn't fair to that poor fish. Scully choked up a bit, biting her lip to stop the tears. She walked out of the bathroom and sank down on Mulder's bed. That poor, poor fish. The tears began to flow more freely as she thought about Mulder coming home to find his fish dead. But he wasn't coming home. Scully curled up on the bed, Mulder's pillow clutched in her hands. She had held it inside for so long, hadn't cried at all. Not in Montana, not back in DC, not even in North Carolina, not really. She hadn't cried when she went to identify the body, nor when she came over here to pick out his suit. Her body shuddered as she began to sob. He was dead. And it didn't matter if his fish all died now. She could just get up and turn off the filter for all he was going to care. He was dead. The baby flipped, upset with the pain his mother was experiencing. Scully dropped her hand down to where her belly was growing every day. Things were never going to be totally normal for this child of hers for so many reasons, but it wasn't fair he was being cheated out of ever knowing his father. She gasped and rolled on her back as the sobs began to stop. She had never really developed a vision for what this would be like, how they would act when she actually got pregnant, but at no time did she think it would be like this. She had thought about maintaining her independence, but all the important stuff, that would all be shared with Mulder. She never imagined he'd be gone. She never imagined he'd be dead. She sat back up, her back and head beginning to throb. She had to get it together, get to work, keep moving. But she didn't want to. She wanted to lie back down here and just not move. Everything was supposed to be different and there was no way to change it. It wasn't like she could bring Mulder back. He was as dead as that fish she had just pulled out of the tank and he was going to stay that way. He was gone from her life. But she would have something to remember him by. She had his child. Scully pushed herself back up from the bed, slid to the edge and stood up. Mulder wouldn't recognize this woman she'd become. She'd only been in his bed a few times before he died. She could barely remember a day since that she hadn't laid down on it for at least a few minutes. It was the one place she could still feel him. But he wouldn't want that for her...he'd want her to keep going and not dwell on what would never be. Scully walked out of the bedroom with purpose. She stopped by the fish tank to tip the lid on the tank back down. She paused for a moment, then walked to the door, picking her purse up on the way out. On her way out of the building, she stopped on the second floor and gave ten dollars to the boy in apartment 25. It was worth keeping the fish alive another week. For now. FIN Feedback gratefully received.
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