Chapter Text
When a bright light engulfed him and left him staring at his own body, he’d kind of expected the rest of the near-death experience to hold true, too. He expected to be looking down on himself, serene, finally at peace.
Instead, he was looking up.
About a foot up.
And there was red hair in his eyes.
Oh, shit.
But there were ten men with guns pointed at them, and he absolutely could not freak out. He couldn’t. He took slow, deliberate steps around the car, even though his legs were too short and moved differently and were constricted into shoes and pants differently. Do not freak out. Opened the door. Do not freak out. Got in, buckled in. Do not freak out.
Everything was the wrong height. The seatbelt, the head rest, the dashboard and the whole world outside the window, it was all registering at the wrong angle. The car—with him in the passenger seat, what the hell—was moving wrong.
He took a series of deep breaths and still felt like he was suffocating. It’s because I’m covered in the wrong skin! Every inch of him, inside and out, was wrong. It was wrong. He wanted to scream.
Scully beat him to it. She made a long, low sound, like an animal in pain, only to cut off abruptly. He was glad for that. Is that what I sound like? Despite accusations of narcissism he’d never really listened to his own voice that much. Certainly not when someone else was using it.
“Scully?” he said, and that made it worse, so much worse. Not just because it was her voice, but because he’d also had a terrible thought: what if it wasn’t her beside him? He’d assumed, but as she loved to remind him, he made a lot of dumb assumptions. “Scully, talk to me. Please tell me it’s you in there.”
“It is.”
Maybe it was being in her body that did it, but he wanted some slightly better proof. I don’t think I could take it if it were anyone else. “What’s your mother’s name?”
“Maggie.”
But anyone could have that information, couldn’t they? “What’d you have for lunch yesterday?” he pressed.
“Mulder, this is hard enough without the twenty questions. Would you shut up and let me drive?”
Yeah, okay, it’s her.
He gave her a lot of shit, but she was a perfectly competent driver—under normal circumstances. These were not even close to normal circumstances, and so thank fuck they were in the middle of nowhere, because it turned out she couldn’t drive a car and his body at the same time, at least not very well. They accelerated and decelerated at odd moments, went wobbling across the center line a couple of times. She took the first possible opportunity to get off the highway when it presented itself, a turnoff for a motel that she took at a full ten miles below the speed limit.
He wanted to make fun of her, but he was feeling kind of queasy himself.
They pulled in and parked like this was the first day of driver’s ed, and then Scully very slowly lowered her head to the wheel. And kept it there, her eyes firmly shut, her knuckles no less white.
Yeah, he felt that. But it did get stale after a solid few minutes of absolute silence.
“You okay?”
“I’m praying, Mulder.”
“I’m not sure God’s at the root of this particular issue.”
“I’m praying for the strength not to strangle you.”
“Oh.” He considered it. “Wouldn’t you be strangling yourself, though?”
“That’s your only saving grace right now.”
“Ah. I’m…I’m gonna get us rooms.”
She nodded ever so slightly, and he figured that was as good as he was going to get. He got out, only to nearly topple over when his feet were in the wrong position once again. Heels! Why did she always have to wear heels? Why did anyone wear heels? He righted himself with a colossally awkward effort, making ample use of the car for leverage.
He also used it as a chance to peer through the window, hoping she might take pity on him, but after the undiminished shock of seeing his body there he also saw that he wasn’t going to get any tips or sympathy. Scully’s head was still firmly on the wheel, and she was all but vibrating with rage and disbelief. He recognized the signs even like this. Now was not the time.
He turned around slowly, took an experimental step, and managed not to fall. And then another. And another.
There was an entire parking lot between him and the office.
Fuck.
But there was nothing else to do except sit and loose his mind, and so he started walking.
Halfway there, he realized he didn’t have her purse.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.