1st April, 7.26 am
"Hey Scully, your shoes are untied." Mulder commented, looking up from his computer screen.
She quickly looked down at the straps on her heels. Straps.
"Mulder..." She started, warning him.
He held up his hands, "Don't look at me Scully, it's just what the powers that be informed me."
She turned away and rolled her eyes. She couldn't help but smile, although she knew not to let him see it. It would only encourage him.
He started pretending to look really busy typing. She was fairly certain he was only pretending, because if not it would be breaking one of the few rules of Mulder. "No unnecessary office work before 10 am." And it seemed unlikely for him to ignore one of his own laws.
A lot of time she went along with him on this policy. She'd never admit it, but it was nice to have a few hours break from paperwork, before they had even started. They teased each other usually. Subtly. But he never usually got that annoying until around nine.
She retaliated by coughing.
Ten seconds later he coughed.
Ten seconds later she coughed again.
The same time period elapsed, he coughed back.
They had it timed perfectly, but it stopped being irritating and amusing, both at the same time, after a while. It worked better on long plane journeys.
Pissed people right off. And if they got any dirty looks for it they just flashed their badges and one of them would say "Official FBI business." while trying not to crack up.
That usually kept the passengers quiet.
Sometimes they'd even oblige and join in with the coughing ritual, to "assist in the investigation."
That's when it stopped being so fun and became simply a group of people coughing in mid-air. Their little games were best kept private.
Of course Agents Mulder and Scully would never be so unprofessional... but on one of those six hour flights... anyone would do the same.
She wondered if she should start a sneezing match with him, but thought that might be going a wee bit too far.
She considered arm-wrestling, then rejected the idea. She won a lot, and she would have hated to make him cry.
She laughed out loud at this thought. He stopped pretending to work and looked at her.
"What was that for, Agent Scully?" he asked. "A laugh of triumph? Just proven a scientific theory? The cure for cancer?"
He regretted saying it almost immediately.
Why Can't I Just keep my mouth closed? He asked himself.
It was a sensitive subject, but she either never noticed or just took it well.
"Actually, I was imagining you whimpering in pain." she responded truthfully.
"Kind of sadistic this morning, aren't we Scully?"
It became clear to him what she meant when she held her hand out.
"You want to dance?" he joked. "Ah, Scully, I can't arm-wrestle you now, I don't think I could take the pain."
"Thought as much." she commented.
He began typing again.
She tried to glance at the screen, but he darted left and right, completely blocking her view, purposefully.
When she could stand it no longer she finally asked "What the hell are you doing, Mulder? Doesn't this break our office rules?"
Scully said hell a lot to make sure she sounded tough.
"To hell with the rules." he replied.
Mulder said hell a lot to make sure he sounded tougher than Scully.
"Okay," she relented. "Have your secrets."
Just when he thought she had given up, she swept in front of him, pushing him out of the way to see the screen.
It was filled with random nonsense words such as "Hi", "Tartan", "Amanda" and "Mop." Sometimes even "Amanda-Mop."
"April Fools, Scully." he grinned. "I knew you wouldn't be able to resist a look."
She could have kicked herself.
It was the first of April, she realised when she looked at Mulder's "tasteful" celebrity calendar.
She'd often though about just taking it down and replacing it with "Scenes of Nature."
Mulder, of course, would argue that his calendar had also been scenes of nature.
She would have retaliated by saying that some of the women in those pictures certainly weren't natural.
She had also thought about putting a seductive picture of herself over one of the months, just to see what he did.
Even if it was only in the hope that he would put one of him there too.
Her mind's obviously somewhere else he realised when she didn't snap at him immediately.
I know how I can get her attention...he realised. He'd been planning it for so long anyway...
"Hey, Scully."
"What?"
"I love you."
She waited for the loud exclamation of "April Fools!"
But it never came.
The End