Title: Make a Girl Feel Special
Author: Starbuck
Feedback: Puh-leeze? Only constructive though. Just use the review thingy.
Rating: PG
Category: General
Spoilers: Hollywood A.D., and whatever episode that was with the Apollo 11 keychain
Summary: Once again, its Scully's birthday and Mulder's forgotten…or has he?
Author's Note: In case you don't read the one at the bottom, I can't remember what episode it was with the Apollo 11 keychain b/c I saw it like 6 months ago so don't hold any of the dates and stuff against me.
~**~
"Shut up!!" I screamed at the alarm clock beside my bed, blaring its earsplitting blast into the core of my eardrum. The wretched device had just awoken me from the best dream I had ever enjoyed. I had just driven a stake through the heart of Diana Fowley...
Exasperated, I covered my ears with the pillow that previously supported my head. It couldn't be 6:00 yet. I had just gone to bed. And why should I get up? Was there a reason to? Was there ever a reason to?
Realization eventually dawned. Yesterday was the 22nd. Today is the...23rd. It's official. I'm a year older than I was yesterday. Another wrinkle, another gray hair, another day wishing my life had turned out as normally as I had dreamed of as a child...
Surrendering to the blare of my alarm, I arose from my bed and instinctively tossed the covers up and arranged the pillows. Groggingly, I trudged past the living room and into the kitchen to put my coffee on the pot. Once again in my bedroom, I flipped the light on and stood before the mirror to evaluate myself.
I didn't look any older than I had the day before, but I sure felt that way. Eyes still green, hair still red. Impulsively, I tucked my locks behind my ears and smoothed out my usual morning "lump" on the back of my head. 33 wasn't really that old, was it? I still had a life to live, didn't I?
After a quick shower, I stood before my closet of almost identical suits. Hmm, what to wear on this special occasion? Black coat and pants with white or blue blouse? Decisions, decisions. I selected the black suit with white blouse. Mom says I look like I'm going to a funeral when I dress for work. In a way, I am. But more of a funeral for my forgotten dreams. A funeral for the innocent and everyday life I had always dreamed of having.
Cross adorned, I dried my hair and applied my makeup with an extra dark red shade of lipstick. Hey, it's my birthday. Can't a girl have a little fun? I grabbed my coffee and laptop and locked the door to my apartment. Another typical morning in the life of Dana Scully.
~**~
The clicking away of a keyboard greeted me as I casually strolled into the office I shared with my partner in the basement of the FBI. He didn't even glance up from his computer screen as he welcomed me with the customary, "Morning, Scully."
I mumbled some incomprehensible greeting as I laid my laptop on his desk. (His desk, not mine. I had a chair.) Sipping away at my coffee, I sat down and fidgeted until I was comfortable. Mulder barely took notice of me. He continued whatever he was doing, (paperwork or something) and didn't say another word. My theory that had formed on the drive to work was justified.
He had absolutely no idea that it was my birthday.
Typical, I thought. Very typical. Self-centered bastard couldn't even remember his own birthday, much less anyone else's. Not that it really mattered anyway. I wasn't especially dying for another Apollo 11 keychain, although it was one of his sweetest gestures of our almost eight year partnership. Where that gift had originated was still a mystery to me. Still, it had been nice to see the more emotional side of Mulder, a change from the far-off manner and undemonstrativeness. For that one moment, he had yawed from his alien-chasing search to take the time to think of me on my birthday. A little kindness was all I wanted, and he had really melted my heart with the little cake and all. For the first time in twenty years, I was the birthday girl.
"Are you just gonna sit there or do you need something to do?" he said, indicating the stack of paperwork at his computer side. At least he had lifted his eyes, averting them from the glowing screen long enough for them to meet mine. I knew he could tell something was up.
"I can occupy myself, thank you," I replied coldly as I unfolded my laptop and started it up. "Hello, Dana!" it chimed when the startup screen arose. "Today is February the twenty-third."
Alright, if he didn't catch on by now, there was something wrong with his brain. That disease could be kicking in again. I glanced up, expecting him to pause while realization sank in. The only acknowledgment I received as a result of this obvious hint was more typing. Was he deliberately ignoring my attempts to make him understand my reason for being especially cold this morning? We worked in silence henceforth, I on a death certificate, he on budget forms.
Lunch hour came and went without incident. I grabbed a yogurt from our mini-fridge and took a walk around the fountains surrounding the J. Edgar Hoover building. The day was warm and sunny, an alteration from the previous cold and blustery ones. If no one else recognized that today was the day I was born 33 years ago, at least Mother Nature did. Once I had finished my yogurt and disposed of the container, I started to head back to the office. I was stopped by a voice behind me as I began to ascend the stairs.
"Scully, wait up," the voice proclaimed. I wheeled around to face my partner. He halted when I turned to face him and motioned for me to follow him on to the sidewalk. I complied and climbed down the stairs to meet him.
"Are you pissed at me? You seemed really distracted and..."
"No, Mulder, I'm not pissed. Just... well, it's not important. I'll see you in," I glanced at my watch, "ten minutes."
Once again, I climbed the stairs and headed back to the office. Mulder arrived ten minutes later, just making the one o'clock ending of our lunch break. He settled down at his desk and started working, but I noticed how he would stop typing for minutes at a time and stare at the computer screen as if he were contemplating something over and over in his mind.
I ignored these suspensions and finished my death certificate along with some old toxicology reports. By the time five o'clock rolled around, I was more than ready to leave that hellhole. Without a word to my ignorant partner, I left the office and exited the building. I longed for the comfort of my apartment where I was free to sulk as I wished.
When I finally arrived home, I was greeted by a tiny package wrapped in shiny yellow paper and a dozen yellow roses on my kitchen counter. It had become a yearly tradition that my mother had not failed to uphold to this day. She would always stop by while I was at work and drop off a present for me with the arrangement of flowers, knowing they were my favorite. I smiled and placed the roses in a vase. Bringing the gift to the kitchen table, I proceeded to read the small tag. "To my wonderful daughter," it said, "from someone that loves you." My mother could be so sentimental at times.
After I had unwrapped the present, I called her and thanked her for the latest Patricia Cornwell novel, Cause of Death.
"The lady at the bookstore said you would like it, being a doctor and everything, Sweetie. You don't have it already, do you?"
"No, Mom. Thanks."
"So did Fox say anything this year?"
I knew she would get around to that eventually.
"No, Mom. And I didn't really expect him to."
"Oh, that's too bad, Honey. Men can be forgetful sometimes. Don't hold it against him, it's in his nature."
"It doesn't really bother me. He never was very good with these kinds of things. Plus, I hardly ever acknowledge his birthdays, and he extends the same courtesy. Kind of an unspoken law."
"Well, call me if you want to talk later. Happy birthday, Dana. I love you."
"Love you, too, Mom. Thanks again."
We hung up and I returned to my sulking. TV dinner in hand, I watched Friends and Will & Grace before starting in on my novel. The clock struck ten before I got too tired to read and I laid my head against the arm of the couch, staring at the ceiling.
I don't know why I had expected this year to be any different than the ones before. Every birthday, we had simply avoided saying the date aloud in order to avoid any awkward silences. I had even had a colleague visit the office a few years ago and wish me a happy birthday right before his eyes and he hadn't said anything. That keychain year had been different somehow, and I wondered what had inspired him to extend such emotion as to buy me a gift.
A knock on the door interrupted my train of thought and I rose to answer it. Peeking through the hole, I couldn't help but smile at the sight of my partner attempting to clean his teeth in his reflection on the doorknob. He jumped when I opened the door.
"Mulder, what are you doing here?" I said, glancing at the tiny lump in his leather jacket. Could that possibly be...?
"Can I come in?" he asked before stepping through the doorway and shutting the door behind him.
"Sure," I said belatedly as he turned to face me.
"Scully, before I say anything, just let me tell you that I'm sorry I didn't seem to acknowledge that it was your birthday. I guess it kind of hurt you because you seemed pissed all day and didn't even say goodbye before you left. The truth is..."
He pulled the lump out of his jacket and produced a tiny rectangular package wrapped in the Sunday comics. "I never forgot your birthday. I never have. But if you'll recall something I said a long time ago..."
"Dog years," I said, remembering that day in the restaurant. "It's been one dog year since you gave me a present."
Sometimes his little quirks could be so sweet.
"Well are you going to open it?" he asked, nudging the gift in my direction. The smile on his face and glint in his eyes almost made him look like a five-year-old boy at a Chuck E. Cheese birthday party.
I took the gift from him and began to tear at the Peanuts and Garfield wrapping until I had revealed what was inside.
"The Lazarus Bowl," it read. I turned the video over and couldn't help but chuckle at the pictures of Tea Leoni and Gary Shandling fighting zombies with guns and flashlights.
"Oh, Mulder, you shouldn't have," I said sarcastically.
"I brought popcorn!" he announced, already strolling towards my microwave.
And so I enjoyed the last few hours of my birthday snuggled up beside my partner in the warm glow of the TV. The majority of the movie was incomprehensible beneath the sounds of our laughing at the irony of the picture. Mulder had given me the most perfect present ever imaginable. And that was simply time alone with him as a friend and a partner. I'll never forget that night and the way he kissed my cheek when the movie was over saying, "Happy birthday, Scully."
And it was happy. Because he had made it that way.
Author's Note: Yeah, yeah, I know the movie wouldn't have been out by then, but it really fit with the story so I used my artistic license. And I know the dog years thing wasn't really right either. Did he say six or four years? Or was it seven? I couldn't remember. That's why Scully's age probably isn't right either. So anyway, please don't bitch about all that in your review if you would be so kind. Thanks for reading!!!!