1: Hybrid
They are like wide-eyed children at first, deriving pleasure where they can find it: in the warmth of arms and lips and mingled breath, in the first chill of autumn, wind tossing the tips of the trees while they sit huddled together inside—a secret conference consisting of murmured small talk and cases they're only half focusing on, and the occasional treatise on the meaning of life. Have they ever done this before? Because it feels half foreign, but he gets the sneaking suspicion it's been happening all along when their backs were turned. As if a certain inevitability has followed them through sewers and forests and hospitals and top secret government bases, and now it's finally caught up. Mulder and Scully. Scully and Mulder. He suspects it was written in the stars. She is certain they are a happy accident.
They can't decide whose apartment they live in. If they stay in hers, his fish will die, but if they stay in his, they will probably end up sleeping on the couch- two fairly undesirable options, although it is Mulder's opinion that the close proximity they would have to share in order to both sleep on his sofa would be more enjoyable than not.
No one has mentioned moving the fish tank, or cleaning his bedroom. Maybe it seems like too big a concession, an admittance that all the gossip was well founded. Maybe it feels too permanent. She's a little scared of the inevitability he embraces, shies away from the thought that they are pieces of a cosmic game, unable to direct the courses of their lives. Their life, she admits, as she admits that without him, her existence would not be meaningless, but she would have little interest in its meaning.
It's half shock, half reckless joy that characterizes those first few months. Shock that there is joy, after all the pain they've experienced as a result of his quest. Late in the night she whispers to him that it isn't his fault, that she wouldn't change a single moment. He doesn't quite believe her, but in the pale glow of the streetlamps from her window and the brighter glow of her eyes, he can pretend that he does. It is enough.
They walk into work together now, overcoats flapping at their legs in an odd rhythm, her heels tapping a sharp staccato to his heavier tread. Mulder and Scully, Scully and Mulder, Mulder and Scully. He always makes her go through the security check first, his eyes focused on the back of her neck no matter how hard he tries to tear them away.
In the crowded elevator, they meet with curious stares, knowing nods. Scully isn't sure just when they started generating so much interest, but it embarrasses her more than she'd like to admit. She fights the flush starting to rise to her cheeks with a focused aggression normally reserved for mutants and men with a nicotine addiction. Mulder, more accustomed to this type of attention, winks at her not so subtly. She loses the battle. Once, when scrawny Jim from budgeting and a tall brunette she thinks is a secretary upstairs are nudging each other and smirking openly, Mulder steps close enough that their arms touch, leans into her, and gently brushes his lips against her cheek. Jim's mouth hangs open as a rusty door, and Scully is sure that she will either vanish into thin air or burst out in laughter if she stays on the elevator a moment longer. As the doors open on the basement level, she could swear she hears someone say, "That's ten bucks for me, pal."
She chides Mulder for his lapse in professionalism as soon as their office door shuts behind them, but his hazel eyes are doing all his talking for him, his mouth forming no other argument than a conspiratorial grin. When she runs out of words, he's still gazing at her with all the pent-up life of a young boy, and she steals a kiss before she can stop herself. The grin remains on their faces all day long.
They both laugh more than they used to, she realizes the next day as she's listening to half of a phone conversation with Frohike. Mulder's disembodied voice floats in from the next room, sounding younger than it has in years, his friend's goodnatured teasing obviously striking a chord. She hears no talk of UFO sightings or the latest intelligence on military aircraft. It's almost as if the conspiracy surrounding them has disappeared, all evidence of it removed from their lives with the same thoroughness always employed to cover up unpleasant truths.
"Yeah, she's here, " says Mulder. He laughs at what Scully can only guess is said on the other line. "No." A silence. "No! Look, why would she want to talk to you when she's got a guy like me right here with her?" Scully almost speaks up at that; it is only curiosity that makes her stay silent and flip to the next page of the novel she's ostensibly reading, though all interest in it has ceased. He laughs again, but this time it's a quiet chuckle.
"Maybe," he says. "Well yes. I mean, yeah, she's—shut up, Frohike. That's none of your business. "
Scully doesn't particularly like the idea of Frohike knowing anything close to "none of his business", but she supposes it's almost inevitable. Frohike knows, Jim from budgeting and his lady friend know, Skinner knows—Skinner's secretary knows, judging from her conspicuous lack of flirting with Mulder in recent weeks. Heck, the aliens probably know by now. Maybe they'll stop their blinding white lights and tabletop dissections for a while in favor of a new experiment. What happens when two humans mingle souls, when they become so inseparable that they form two halves of one whole? She wonders how arrogant she is to think that they are the first. The hybrid. Surely no one else could ever have loved with the odd, aching pang that fills her from head to toe as she listens to his voice.
"Okay, tell Byers hello back," he says. "Yeah, we'll come. To the—we'll come to your trailer. Oh, zip it, you pervert." Scully lets out a long-suffering sigh and returns to her novel.