Icy moon shards sliced the wood floor like hard flesh, white stripes bleeding cleanly into black. Cool, springtime wind whistled along branches, rapping a twig against the window to a steady beat. A bathroom faucet dripped softly to the same rhythm, nearby. And every so often, a faint pair of headlights careened atop the dips and ridges of the apartment's beige walls, the tail of a flash sometimes bouncing off the glass in a frame and right into the sleepless man's eyes.
His work partner, however, was soundly untouched in his bedroom.
Fox Mulder stretched his lanky frame, bracing against the dark leather of the couch. He yawned. His heartbeat had woken him, thumping a song of anxiety. Good anxiety. Sleep doesn't matter right now, he thought, letting a newfound aura of contentment invade his senses. Because tonight was the best damn night I've had in ages. We finally did it. In my bed. And then on my couch. Oh, my God. He sighed. A victor weighed by his medals, he slumped tiredly on the leather.
Mulder unlaced his fingers from the pink, thready trophy that he had apparently weaved between his fingertips earlier. He was grasping Dana Scully's underwear less for sexual purposes he supposed, but rather more as something viable to prove this had actually occurred tonight. Scully had always chastised him for lack of evidence in their work, anyway. She should be sympathetic to this. He was finally getting that proof he needed for the truth. Well, not that truth-not a truth of mysterious probes, illusive grays, and intergovernmental conspiracies.
Their truth.
Scully had suggested they have tea in his apartment. Her red hair bathed blue from the glow of his fish tank, he found himself childishly mesmerized by it. They chatted briefly. Conversation muzzily branched from an old flame she had found almost rekindled, to said old flame's bizarrely bitter daughter, and even to a pedestrian who had miraculously saved her from a collision by entering the crosswalk at the right moment. He remembered finding her recollection of events almost unbelievable-even by his standards. But who was he to judge? So he sat back, and let her ramble...until she finally petered out, disheveled bob lolling on his left shoulder, and even breathing sating her into silence.
He had lugged a hefty patterned comforter over her, and switched off the light.
Mulder had never anticipated that an hour later, Scully would be at his bedside, asking him if he was awake. If he wanted to try something new. She was already tugging the green hem of her shirt up. His heart had nearly stopped.
Of course he'd said yes.