Title: A Rainy Day
Author: Fatcat
Rating: PG
Category: SMR
Spoilers: Probably
Summary: After all things, an interesting rainy day experience from Scully's pov
Disclaimer: This is all for fun. This is my first fanfiction story and I would like to thank one reader that clued me into a MAJOR typo—Woops! I spelled Scully wrong. Thanks again. Please let me know how you liked the story. P.S. to CC & the gang at 1013 and FOX Network—Thanks for the great group of characters to build my little story around. No theft intended. Keep up the good work.
Dana Scully was in a blue funk. The window next to her desk provided the perfect background for her mood—a torrential thunderstorm that was making the day dark and dreary. She quickly glanced to the small brass clock by her left hand and sighed. It was only 4:15 p.m., yet it looked like the middle of the night. Her right hand instinctively picked up her cell phone and hit a speed dial number. After two rings, a voice answered.
"Mulder."
"Oh, Mulder, I… I dialed the wrong number. I was trying to check the time and temperature number to see if my desk clock was accurate, and I must have hit your number by accident. Sorry."
"Hah! That's the best you can come up with Scully? I know what you're up to. You hate storms, you hate lightening and you hate thunder. You were calling to entice me to go out in this weather to pick up dinner and a couple of movies. Come on, fess up." Mulder teased.
"No, really, Mulder, I'm sorry I bothered you. Bye." Dana sighed.
"Wait, Scully! What's up? You sound down. What's going on?" Mulder was concerned.
"Nothing, Mulder, I'm fine. Really."
"Okay, if you say so. But, Scully," Mulder responded.
"Yeah?" Dana answered.
"If you're 'fine', answer me just one question, Okay?" Mulder asked.
"Yeah?" Dana sighed.
"Scully," Mulder paused, "What are you wearing?"
Dana's answer was a non-word response that sounded like something between a snort and a grunt, and could have ended on a small laugh.
"Mulder, I…" she hesitated, "I guess I'm not going to dignify that with a response. Use your imagination." Dana retorted. "No, scratch that!" she laughed, "I could be on dangerous ground here. I'm just wearing my usual Saturday, cleaning-the-house-and-doing- laundry sweats."
"Come on Scully, cut me some slack. You could at least say that you were wearing a teddy under your sweats." Mulder smiled.
"Mulder!"
Mulder could just see her eyebrow jacking up and "the Look" on her face as she responded. What made him say that?
"Mulder?" Dana said. "Mulder?"
"Yeah?" He laughed.
"Mulder?" her voice challenged. "What are you wearing?"
Click.
Fox Mulder pulled the phone away from his ear and stared at it as the dial tone sounded for over a full minute. "What are you wearing?" From Scully, this was trouble. Something was wrong. Mulder stood up and realized he was still just looking at the humming phone. Something was definitely wrong with Scully. He decided this needed investigating.
Meanwhile in Georgetown, Dana Scully was mortified.
She had never in their six plus year relationship as partners, ever, ever asked him such a question.
"What are you wearing?" Oh, my gosh! What have I done?
Dana paced her living room thinking about what had just happened. As she walked she straightened. Cleanliness and order were two habits that had saved Dana many times. Yes, an immaculately clean house was a sign that one spent a lot of time and physical labor working, and not a lot of time contemplating the order of ones personal life. Ignore your personal life. Cleaning, straightening, shopping. Those were the things that a woman in her thirties with a career and no social life embraced. Avoid the pain of loneliness with action and hard work.
Never mind that occasionally, just occasionally, mind you, even shopping was painful. Too many stores had wonderful displays of bridal gowns, maternity clothes and baby paraphernalia. Only occasionally did these bother her. (Just 90% of the time, her mind responded.)
Now, she had done it. All because of this blue funk she was in, she had responded inappropriately to Mulder teasing remark.
She stopped in the middle of her dining room. She looked all around. Everything was done. Everything was cleaned, laundered, scrubbed, sorted, filed, paid, straightened and/or arranged in her entire apartment.
"I need a shower!" Dana jumped. She realized that she had just spoken out loud and the sound of her own voice had startled her. "I am in deep trouble if I can even spook myself."
"Spook!" she laughed, "Spooky. Spooky Mulder. Mrs. Spooky" Woops, where had that come from?
A bath! Forget the shower, she decided. She needed a nice long soak in the tub with a chilled bottle of wine and tons of candles. MMMMM…. that sounded great.
Dana quickly gathered all the things she needed for her bathing orgy. The wine was chilling next to the tub in the antique silver wine bucket and stand that she had found just last month when she had gone shopping with her mom. The crystal stemware was on the tray at the end of the tub, along with a small snack for later and a book. The candles were lit.
She delved into her secret stash of bath salts and oils. What did she want? One by one she picked up each bottle and vial and smelled the wonderful fragrances. She usually did not use any of these exotic scents for weekdays. She liked to keep her fragrance light, subtle and professional.
These rich indulgences were her secret passion. She had traveled all over the United States for the FBI and every time she had a spare moment, she would slip away to shop, finding the out-of-the way places and expensive boutiques that specialized in fragrances. No one she worked with, no one she knew, heck not even her family knew her passion for exotic fragrances. Bath oils, salts, perfumes, lotions, candles, potpourri, all of these things in all kinds of exotic fragrances were her secret vice. She smiled, well these and fine chocolate. At least one of her passions could be made public.
Dana smiled to herself. 'I bet if they knew I flew to Europe on the SST for the weekend occasionally to shop for my "passion" they would flip.' Dana thought as her hand returned to the vial shaped like Aladdin's Lamp. 'A little dramatic, "Genie in the Bottle" by…' 'That's funny', she thought, 'the distributor of this one is blurred and unreadable.'
Shrugging, Dana dribbled the bath oil into the stream of steaming water pouring into her old-fashioned claw foot bathtub. 'Just a little,' she thought. 'Oh, heck' she thought as she liberally poured more of the spicy fragrance. 'What am I saving it for? My wedding night?'
Dana stopped as she realized what she had thought. I'd better check my calendar to see if it's my cycle that's giving me all these crazy thoughts. She shrugged and went on with her preparations. Candles, wine, bath oil, lights, clothes, yep, all set. The last thing she did after she loaded her favorite CD's into the player and stepped to her bath was to place her towel and her terry bathrobe on the old-fashioned steam radiator that was the only remaining artifact in the room from the previous heating system. It still worked for some reason. She had never remembered to ask her landlord about it. She just enjoyed it. She loved to step out of the tub and after drying with a warm towel, pull on a warm and snuggly robe, especially in the winter. 'Ah, the little pleasures!' she thought with a small laugh.
She turned to step into the tub and was startled by her reflection in the pier glass standing in the corner of the room.
She hesitated and turned from side to side checking out her reflection. She sighed. No improvement. She was still short, still slender, still…Dana. She had reconciled to her appearance many years ago. When she had stopped growing, up and out, she had railed against the unfairness of heredity. Why had her sister Melissa received all the plus features in the family—height, long legs, generous curves, outgoing personality and she, she had inherited all the minuses. Face it; she was short, slender and basically, an introvert. She had, however, also received a major dose of intelligence that allowed her to hide her shyness behind a façade of coolness and reason. She had come to respect her capable body as she had tested it through college, medical school, Quantico, and, the hardest of all, the six years in the field as Special Agent Dana Scully.
Turning around, she looked for all the signposts of her 6 years at the Bureau. The scars that spoke of wounds, of pain--both physical and mental were all there. No change here either, she grinned. Well, at least I wasn't abducted overnight! For some reason, this made her smile, then grin, and then break out laughing. Inside joke, Scully, she thought.
The bath water was still slightly hot. Not enough to stop her, though. She slipped into the water and gave a long heartfelt sigh. The intoxicating scent of the bath oil was fabulous. This was one of her newer finds, but she made up her mind that this was probably going to become her favorite. This thought brought a smile to Dana's face. "They're all my favorites" she said aloud.
The music swelled to a crescendo and stopped. A new disk was starting.
Dana picked up the natural sea sponge and began to slide it over her entire body. The texture of the sponge and the sweet/exotic fragrance of the oil and the heat of the water did their job as she relaxed. All semblances of stress and concern left her body. She had felt this relaxed in the past, but it had usually happened after an evening with an incredibly sexy man and usually happened sometime just before she drifted off to sleep in his arms.
"MMMMMM…... Andrea Bocelli's Romanza" she said to no one in particular as the strains of the music washed over her as surely as the water in the tub. "His voice is beautiful. The Italian lyrics sound so romantic and soulful."
"I don't know, he could be talking about his dog being hit by a car." Mulder said from the doorway. "Or do you speak Italian?"
"MULDER" Dana shrieked. "What… Where… When… How?" she sputtered to a halt, speechless, as she slid down into the tub.
"Come, come, Scully. One question at a time." Mulder said as he smiled. "What am I doing here? I am seeking the truth. Where did I come from? I just left my apartment. When? Well, that's tougher. When did I leave my apartment or when did I stop for food or when did I stop at the video store. Or when did I first see you in here? How? How did I get in here?" he said as he dangled a key on a very familiar key chain. Her keys.
"These were in the lock on your door. Scully, you okay?" Mulder was sincerely concerned. He remembered only too vividly the incident with Donnie Phaster. The concern he felt almost outweighed the sudden rush of embarrassment and then lust that had pounded through him. He had always kept his feelings hidden, but now he needed all his facilities to keep Scully from reading his heart and his thoughts.
This was Scully, his partner! He loved her. He had always thought of her as beautiful, why had he never allowed himself to noticed how incredibly hot and sexy she was before? Well, his practical side inserted, this is the first time you've ever gawked at her in her private world—her bath. Maybe that's why it's so intense. Her voice brought him back to the here and now.
"Mulder, I left my keys in the door? I don't believe I could do something so stupid. Are you sure you really found them in my door lock?" Scully asked him suspiciously.
"Yeah, Scully, I couldn't believe it myself. I was going to use my own key if you didn't answer, but when I walked up to the door, there they were. Rough night?"
"Yes, I mean No! I mean, yes it was a rough night, but not for the reasons you have swimming in that cesspool of a mind." Dana stormed. "I was very tired after our flight in and had my hands full with my dry cleaning and the suitcases and the groceries I had stopped to buy. I guess I just didn't think to retrieve them after I got in and unpacked."
"Well, I would think one of your neighbors would have stopped by and let you know." Mulder said as he pulled a small stool up to the tub and sat down.
"What are you doing? Don't get too comfortable Mulder, you're just about to leave." Dana fumed.
"Not without answering the final unanswered question. 'When did I get here'. Well, I guess I could be a gentleman and say that I just walked straight up to the door as you spoke about the Italian singer. I could, but would that be the truth?"
Mulder was obviously enjoying this situation. He reached over and picked up a towel from the shelf by the sink.
"Need a towel? Dana?"
"No, I DO NOT need or want a towel. I'm not done with my bath even if you did interrupt it so rudely." She snarled, startled by the use of her first name. The "Look" was plastered on her face.
Her face, Mulder thought. Why does her face look so different?
"Scully, you don't look like yourself. Your face. Your face looks different somehow. Are you okay?" Mulder asked.
Dana sighed and stirred slightly in the tub to look at her face in the mirror on the tray over the end of the tub. 'Oh my God!' She thought, 'I look like I've been making love.' The sheen of perspiration, the heavy-lidded look to her eyes, the ruby pout of her mouth all seemed as easily attributed to sex as to embarrassment.
"It's the heat of the water and embarrassment, Mulder. I don't usually entertain men in my bath—especially, my partner."
"Well, that should just about destroy Frohike's last hope." Mulder chuckled. He was really starting to like this situation. "Come on Scully, let's go out to the living room and eat the Chinese food I brought and watch a video." He said as he held up the towel.
"Mulder, I may be trapped in here now, but just remember, I do have a gun and I have shot you in the past. Do not go there!" Dana had just about as much as she could take.
The sudden silence that fell surprised both agents. They both laughed uneasily as the next CD started to play.
"Okay, Scully, I give. I'll leave and let you get out of the tub in private. Just say you'll come on out and eat with me. Okay?" Mulder gave her his best puppy dog look. "Please?"
Dana sighed. "Alright Mulder, just give me a few minutes and I'll join you by the TV. Why don't you take the wine bucket with you and we'll have a glass with dinner." She was surprised at the speed Mulder turned and walked out the door.
"Mulder, come back here!"
"As you wish, Scully!" he smirked as he walked hopefully back into the bathroom.
"Mulder, shut the door on your way out this time!"
"Oh, right, Scully." Mulder left again shutting the door this time. He could tell when he should retreat gracefully.
"Damn!" Dana fumed. With a huge sigh and shake of her head, she started to complete her bathing ritual. Hygiene first! She laughed at herself. She always was so organized and demanded so much from herself. The highest expectations she had ever had to meet were her own. Not even Quantico could top her self-inflicted demands--only the best from Dana K. Scully.
She relaxed into the cooling water for a few moments. "What made me agree to sharing my evening with Mulder? I'm not the best company tonight. I really do need to check the calendar." she fumed to herself.
A heavy knock on the door and a plaintive "Come on, Scully" shifted her into high gear. She pulled the plug on the tub and rose to her knees to splash fresh water on her to rinse the bubbles.
As she stepped over to retrieve the warm towel she could hear a number of sounds not normally found in her home. As the last of the water gurgled and drained out of the tub she could hear the sound of the music stopping and the TV starting. She pulled the towel around to her back and smiled as she heard Mulder yelling about the location of her serving spoons and then a quick "Never mind". She raised one foot then another to the low stool to dry her legs as she heard him tearing the bags from the restaurant and opening each carton to take the first bite. (As if she didn't know he loved to do that).
She quickly finished up with all the little girlie things that would have surprised Mulder. Each of theses little things she did for her personal hygiene and for her female soul. Normally she lingered over each of these little rituals. She always remembered lovingly the few times she and Melissa had got to watch their Mom or their Aunt Kate powder and slather and pat their entire bodies getting ready for a big evening out with their "men".
Of course, Mom was always so proper with her dressing gown, but Aunt Kate had been a little more relaxed and had no problem with her sweet nieces watching her do all the womanly things that needed to be done to get ready for her date with her "man", Uncle Charles. She told them each and every step of the mysterious rituals in a constant flow of conversation punctuated with a bar or two of her favorite song—"Someone to Watch Over Me".
Dana paused and listened to the sounds floating into the room. They were so homey. A sudden wash of pain poured over her heart. As she dressed then straightened the room she couldn't shake the lingering sorrow. It was nice to have noise from the other room. It was nice not to be alone on Saturday night. "I wish, I wish I really did have a big date with my "Man" like Aunt Kate. I wish I had "Someone to Watch Over Me" like she and Mom did. "I wish it was Mulder."
"Sculllliiieee, come on, I'm dying of hunger out here!" Mulder whined.
Dana pulled the warmed robe on and looked in the mirror to fluff her hair. So much for wishes, she smiled. A family would be nice, but you Chose a Career, remember that, Scully.
She was tying her sash as she entered the living room. The complete transformation of her nice tidy home shocked her. In just the time she had taken to complete her bath and dress, Mulder had managed to completely change her living room from a tidy clean room to a warm, inviting mess.
Flickering candles were on the coffee table along with plates, silver, food, napkins, wine glasses and the covers from the videos he had rented. The silver wine bucket was strategically placed next to the table. Inserted into the ice right along with the bottle of very good white wine she had chosen was a bottle of beer—no, three bottles of beer. The remote control was resting in the middle of the table--Mulder's only concession to allowing her to decide the schedule of the next few hours.
He had made himself comfortable. His sweater was off, as well as his shoes. Clean white sox covered his feet.
"Come on, Scully, let's get it on..." he said with a leering smirk and wiggling eyebrows. "I cannot wait to eat..."
Scully's laughter spilled out and Mulder's teasing remarks ended in a warm, shared laugh.
"Okay, Mulder, what did you choose?" She sat down on the floor next to Mulder and started spooning out food. "MMM… This smells great. What movies did you get?"
"I got a new Cosner movie 'For Love of the Game'. Have you seen it?"
And so it went. Chinese food, wine, movie, more wine, another movie, and then…
"I cannot believe you picked 'Fargo' as the second movie. I mean, the first one was good, even if it is kind of a Chick Flick, but 'Fargo' was sooooo bad. I think someone needs their thumbs cut off if they liked that movie. Fess up, Mulder, you hated it too!" Dana said as she put the dishes in the sink and returned to the living room.
Mulder had scooted down on the couch and, still holding the remote control, had slid into sleep.
"Mulder, wake up!" Dana tried. "Oh, damn!" She went to the linen closet and pulled a pillow and blanket from 'Mulder's shelf".
Padding softly back to the living room she covered his lanky body and turned out the TV and the lights.
"'Night, Mulder" she yawned as she walked into the bathroom. After completing her nightly rituals she glanced around and noticed that she had left her chest of oils and bath salts out. 'Oh, no, Starbuck, this will never do.' She said as she prepared to hide the chest again. 'Genie In A Bottle', I guess your powers are all in vain. No wishes for me tonight.
Dana walked into her bedroom and over to the window to check outside. The storm that had previously rolled into the District of Columbia was now just a slow drizzle of rain. Tomorrow looked to be a better day. She turned off the lamp by the window and turned, untying her soft terry robe.
"Slower, Scully, the light's not very good in here. I want to linger over this moment."
Dana turned toward the bed and could not believe her eyes.
Mulder was sitting up in her bed and from what she could see he wasn't wearing clothing.
"Funny, Mulder." she said. "How did you do that? I just tucked you in on the couch? I didn't hear you move."
"Ah, yes, but here I am." Mulder's eyes challenged her to step closer. "Maybe, I'm not here. Maybe, I'm still on the couch and this is just a nice dream. Want to find out?"
"Maybe." Scully surprised them both by replying as she slowly untied her sash. She turned in modesty and started to remove her robe. 'Well, this will scare him back out to the couch.' she thought.
"Why the modesty, Scully?" he asked.
She could feel his breath on her neck and in her hair. She swung her head around quickly and saw him standing directly behind her. Close enough to touch, close enough to feel the heat radiating from his body—his boxer shorts clad body, thank God.
"I…I'm just not sure this is a good idea Mulder. After all, I don't think either one of us wants to loose the relationship we have. I mean…"
"Scully, what is that incredible scent you're wearing? I've never noticed this at work. You smell positively…exotic!" Mulder closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. 'I wouldn't have lasted a day with her in the office if she had worn this perfume to work.' he thought.
"Dana, I don't want to loose our friendship either. I know neither one of us has really thought this through, but I do know this. What we have, our professional relationship, our friendship, our… our connection is something that has kept me going at times that I don't think I could have survived otherwise. I just know you are my touchstone. I need you more than I need air or food or the X Files. I have almost lost you so many times in the last six years it makes me dizzy and sick to remember. I've led you into danger, ignored your warnings, allowed you to close me out, watched you with other men, and exposed you to death and illness so many times that I CAN NOT and WILL NOT let this opportunity pass.
"I told you I love you once and you just thought it was the drugs. I'm telling you now, Scully, I LOVE YOU. It's not the night or drugs or the alcohol talking. This is me, Fox Mulder telling you" he said as he turned her around to face him clad only in the silk and lace teddy she had slipped into after her bath, "I love you….You are wearing a teddy Scully, you sneaky G-woman. Wow!"
"Mulder!" she said as she buried her face in his chest. "You're not making this easy."
"Scully, why the shy routine? It's not like I haven't seen you naked before. I mean you were in that cocoon in Alaska. But, wow, Scully it's incredible how clothing can add to the mystique." Mulder said as he slid his hands up and down her incredibly soft-skinned arms.
"Mulder shut up and kiss me. I love you too!" Dana sighed, "And thank you 'Genie In A Bottle'" she whispered as her fondest wish came true. (Sorry folks, you can think up the NC-17 part for yourselves.)