Summary: Mulder and Scully. Driving. In the rain, in the dark, and maybe a little in love. Set around Season 3 or 4, but no spoilers for mythology etc.
Disclaimer: I don't own the X-Files, Mulder or Scully, or the song Ain't No Mountain High Enough and its lyrics.
A/N: The first X-Files fic I've ever written, so the first I'm going to post. I enjoyed writing this an immense amount, mainly because it distracted me from the angst which is seasons 8 and 9 and the excitement around the revival (which I'm loving, by the way). I hope y'all enjoy- please review if you read!
Hiatus
'There ain't no mountain high enough
Ain't no valley low enough
Ain't no river wide enough
To keep me from getting to you, babe.'
-Mavin Gaye & Tammi Terrel, Ain't No Mountain High Enough
"Scully."
"Hm?" Her gaze doesn't stray from the endless rolls of hills outside, now rendered blurry and indistinguishable by the rain hammering at the window.
"This is Kentucky, Scully, it's not that interesting."
"I'm thinking."
About what? He doesn't push it; god knows she's always thinking about something, whether it's a case, or how long the weather's going to keep up, or if she's ever going to be transferred to a more respectable area of the Bureau…
He nudges her.
"What, Mulder?"
"You've been staring out that window for the past half hour, you know."
"I'm thinking." She repeats, shortly.
The irritation in her voice is becoming sharper by the second, quickly reaching the familiar point of no return where she will break off midway through a sentence, exasperation plainly written across her face, before falling silent and refusing to speak again until both of them have forgotten what it was they were saying in the first place.
He grins. "It's another two hours and a state border to Cincinnati. You planning on thinking all the way there, too?"
"It depends."
So she's not admitting defeat yet.
"Do you want the radio on?"
"You were the one who turned it off."
"I just couldn't stand to hear the Wildcats losing like that," he reaches for the radio. "I can turn it over-"
Scully knocks his hand away before it gets there.
"Leave it."
He smirks again and is about to point out that not listening to baseball is un-American, when Scully shouts out in warning. Mulder's attention immediately snaps back onto the road, where a crossroads has now materialised, along with a large, fast-moving pickup truck that has no thought of stopping. Despite the hammering rain, the squeal of tyres against the tarmac is audible as he slams on the brakes with seconds to spare.
The pickup crosses their path without hesitation and disappears into the storm.
"God, Mulder!"
Taking a few deep breaths to calm his heartrate before answering, Mulder turns to look at her.
"We're still alive, aren't we?"
She squarely meets his eyes for a long moment, frozen with indecision. If the quirk on her lips is anything to go by, she's halfway between yelling at him and laughing, and can't decide which is less desirable. Finding a happy medium, she just looks away through the window again.
"Maybe I should drive."
Mulder shrugs and simply keeps going over the crossroads, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel in time with the rain as he fights to keep the amusement off his face.
Silence descends inside the car again, save for the combined pattering sound of Mulder's finger sand the hammering on the roof and windows. The roads twist lazily through more valleys, past endless empty fields that are slowly becoming large puddles under the barrage. Although it's only mid-afternoon, the ash-grey sky above is casting the impression of night-time, and Mulder finds his focus wavering. He forces himself to keep his eyes on the road before him, rather that the hypnotic sway of the windscreen wipers, but it's a surprisingly difficult task.
"Scully?"
"Yes, Mulder?"
"Are you sure you don't want the radio on?"
"Yes, Mulder."
The continuous tapping is beginning to make his hands ache, so he reluctantly stops and starts instead to bounce his knee up and down as a way of preventing the boredom and silence from becoming too overpowering. Within a minute, however, he's forced to stop, as the muscles in his legs soon tire. He sighs, clicks is neck to either side, then clears his throat.
"Ninety nine green bottles sitting on a wall, ninety nine green bottles sitting on a wall, and if one green bottle should accidently fall, they'll be ninety eight green bottles sitting on the wall. Ninety eight green bottles…"
The ninety sixth green bottle has just taken a fall when Scully interrupts him. "Mulder?"
"Yeah, Scully?"
"Shut up."
He shuts up.
As a truce, Scully flicks the radio on, switching the channel to a music station to avoid another baseball discussion. The opening lines of 'Ain't No Mountain High Enough' almost manages to finally drown out the hammering of the rain, and Mulder's boisterously off-key singing does the rest.
Scully doesn't move at all, her gaze firmly fixed on the landscape outside. Under the noise of the stereo Mulder finds it difficult to hear whether she sighs or not, or if she makes any noise at all, but as he turns the corner he glances across to look at her.
Her reflection is hard to make out against the rippling water on the window, but if Mulder looks closely he thinks he can just make it out. If he's not mistaken, he can see her smiling.