Author's note: After watching the episode for the third or forth time, I started to notice the many subtleties that the episode contains, so I decided to rewrite the story, adding some extra scenes. I think I'll divide the fic in three parts - one for each day spent on The Falls. There are pieces of scenes that we've seen on the episode, of course. Hope you all like, and please let a review after reading okay? I'll try to post part two as soon as possible :) Enjoy!
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What happens in The Falls
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"So, from now on, we are Laura and Robert Petrie, lovely and happy couple, housewife and husband who works at home, no kids." She closed the file, and looked at him. "Laura and Robert Petrie? Who the hell chose the names?" She asked, in a disapproving voice. It was the first time they were going undercover, and Scully was kinda nervous about it.
"It's actually Pee-trie, like the dish. I did.. is not a good name? Ok then, I'll call myself Rob."
She rolled her eyes, and looked through the car window. Those would be awkward days, for sure.
"So, we're married now, huh?" Mulder smiled, his eyes still on the road, while his hand slipped softly on her left knee. She looked at him, extremely uncomfortable. She could see that he was enjoying the whole situation a little bit too much, and this fact worried her. She knew the professional Mulder, the brave agent, the UFO lover, the alien hunter. The prince of paranoia. But she didn't know at all how the casual Mulder would look like; she had never thought about him as an dedicated husband, living in some place without chasing an UFO or bizarre cases. It was something so... unMulder.
"We're here, Laura." He said with a big smile on his face, looking at the gated entrance of the Falls at Arcadia. He gave a little slap on her knee. "Home sweet home."
Oh boy, those would be really awkward days.
xXxXxX
"Welcome, welcome to The Falls!"
She couldn't even carry the "Welcome Neighbors" basket that Pat Verlander had just put on her arms, and Mulder was not really concerned about helping her with it. He was still looking at the big house in front of him, with a weird sparkle on his eyes, almost like his wish was coming true, like if that big house in a community was his dream. Once again, he was surprising her.
"I'm Rob..." He said to Mrs. Verlander, shaking her hand. "...and this is my lovely wife, Laura." He then put his arms affectionately around her. That little action distracted her for a few seconds. He was taking this too seriously, or he was just making this undercover mission look like a big joke?
She heard Pat saying some 'welcome' related thing. "Pleased to make your acquaintance, Pat." she said against the basket, which was starting to really weight on her arms. She heard then when her new neighbor said something about the rules and how they wouldn't make it in time. "I'm sorry?"
"The 6:00 cutoff? All move-ins are required to be completed by 6:00 p.m." Scully and Mulder looked at each other, blankly. "It's in the CC&Rs. It's one of our rules."
Almost instantaneously, all the neighbors were there to help them with the moving truck. They entered in the sparkling clean house. Mulder took a good look at it. "Wow. The pictures did not do it justice."
Pat said something about making it faster to the other neighbors, who were entering the house now, with boxes on their hands. Mulder looked at Scully with a huge smile on his face, and pat her shoulders. She turned to him, hoping that he would help her with the basket, but once again he ignored the huge thing on her arms, and went to take a look on the house. Some guy entered, carrying a chair. She took the basket and set on the chair.
"What do you do for living, Mr. Petrie?"
"Yeah, I, uh... I work mostly at home which is great for Laura because she gets me all to herself." He wrapped his arms around her and gave her a hug. She smiled awkwardly.
They went back to the moving truck, where 10 or so neighbors were helping then. Mulder got all sympathetic with them, saying "Thank you" at least about 15 times. A man came, carring a chair in his head.
"Laura and Rob Petrie."
"It's Pee-trie" she found herself correcting the man. It was clearly a stupid name.
"I'm Win Schroeder, next door neighbor. Welcome home." He said in a polid voice. "Now don't you folks worry. We'll have you moved in before 6pm."
All that hospitality was beginning to annoy Scully; she saw a big guy picking up a box marked "china". She instantaneously got nervous; the equipments to search for blood were in that box, and the guy didn't seem very careful.
"Excuse me, I'll get that, it's ok."
The guy refused and tried to hoist the box in his shoulders, but the box rolled off and fell on the ground. "Oh, wonderful." she thought. He apologized immediately; it was able to see in his eyes how ashamed he was. "Send me bills, I'll pay… I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!"
She was about to say something to him, but she saw Mulder and a basketball goal. Oh no, she thought, he didn't. He had brought that by himself, she was quite sure. Mulder was taking this personally. He was way too much into the character. Scully saw when Win started to say something about how he couldn't put the basketball goal in the driveway because of the CC&R rules. "It's not aesthetically pleasing", Win said. She saw the disappointment in Mulder's eyes.
With the neighbors help, they actually did finished the moving at exactly 6pm. They waved in the doorway, Mulder's arm in Scully's shoulder again. As they closed the door, Scully walked into the living room.
"Oh yeah, nothing weird going on around here" Mulder said, still looking at the door. He turned to her, and gave her a big smile. "Hey... ooh, wait a minute. You didn't let me carry you over the threshold!"
That whole wife-husband thing was annoying Scully. No, not really. It was just that… she never knew when Mulder was kidding, because she felt like there was a little truth behind every joke he said. And she wasn't sure if that scared or amused her.
She took her coat off and faced him. "Are you ready?"
"Let's get it on, honey."
"All right then" she said with a smile, and gave him a pair of latex gloves. She then opened the box where the equipments were, and found it all broken.
"This place is so clean that we could build computer ships here" Mulder said, laying on the floor, trying to see if there was anything on the carpet.
She started to videotape the first floor of the house as she narrated about their mission and the case in general. Mulder was making commentaries here and there, and she got kinda annoyed by that either. He suddenly appeared in front of the camera. "Wanna make that honeymoon video now?"
She closed the video camera. "Laura and Rob Petrie?" She was still mad at him for that. That was a really stupid name. "Mulder, if we ever go undercover again, I get to chose the names okay?"
"Sure, fine, whatever" He said and smiled to her.
"Mulder, you're not taking this seriously are you?"
"I am. I just don't understand why we are on it. It's not an X File."
"What do you want Mulder, aliens?"
"Wow, admit it. You just wanna play house." She was getting upset with him now. He was the one who was enjoying this whole thing a little too much, and she said that to her? She looked at him, her blue eyes showing annoyance. The door rang, and she started to move to the doorway when he said "Woman, get back here and make me a sandwich!"
She came back, really close to him, smiled slight, and threw her latex gloves on his face. He got a little clumsy at first, but then he smiled again. "Did I not make myself clear?"
xXxXx
After Big Mike - the guy who let the box of equipment fall - was gone, they went to the garage, looking for more possible pieces of evidence. As the rest of the house, the place was sparkling. Theperson who cleaned the house was really trying to hide whatever evidence they had. Scully was standing on a little stool, searching on the top of a shelf, without finding anything. She looked at Mulder, who had stopped the search and was looking at the basketball goal, holding a basketball in his hands.
"Mulder, you are really bothered with this?" She asked as she was coming down from the stool.
"You know Scully, with all that happens on the X Files, on our job, I don't get much time for myself. To do things that I like. I thought this assignment would be the perfect time to relax a little, to forget about our jobs and our real lifes, and just you know… enjoy living a normal life." He kept looking at the ball, rolling it in the middle of his hands.
She couldn't help but smile. The thought that Mulder was actually the one who was into the idea of playing house was lovely. "And a normal life envolves having a goal in your driveway?"
"Scully, did you ever played any kind of sports on high school?" He suddenly asked, looking straight at her.
She nodded. "I was too busy studying to care about sports, Mulder." She wasn't completely lying; she did spend a good part of her high school making sure she would have the sufficient grades to get in Harvard. But she secretly wanted to be part of some team, even to be part of the cheerleaders. But that wasn't her place, it was Melissa's.
"You were one of those girls from the chemistry club?" He smiled. "I can't believe that!"
"What, you thought I was some kind of prom queen?"
"Well, actually, yeah. I mean, with your look and.." He looked down at the ball again, which was an relief for Scully; she felt her cheeks get incredibly hot.
"Thank you. But no, I wasn't that kind of girl. But looks like you were in the popular table, huh?"
"I was in the basketball team, but I never really got into the popular guys. I guess my spookiness scared most of people" He gave her a sad smile. "So, you never played any sports. Do you even know how to make a goal?"
She nodded. "Mulder, no, we have to go back and.." Jesus, what was he doing? They were there for a reason. They were there to work. Not to learn how to make a basketball goal.
"Come here. I'll show you."
He put his arms around her own arms, and got close to her, their elbows touching softly, and put the ball in her hands. "You just need to bend your knees, and focus on the target. Go." As they did the movement, she felt a loudly "clack!" behind her. Mulder's back.
"Hey, look, you did it!" he whispered, the pain all over his face. The ball bounced on the floor.
"Mulder, are you okay? Do you want me to check it for you?"
"No, I'm fine. I think I'm so unaccustomed with living a normal life, that I don't fit in the pattern anymore." He tried to smile, but as he was taking a step a wave of pain came and he twisted his face.
xXxXx
"No, Mulder, wait. This is not right."
He looked at her, surprised.
"If anyone should be sleeping on the other room, it should be me. This bed is more comfortable and God knows that your back is not fine." She took a pillow, and gave a step in the door's direction, but Mulder was faster than she. He grabbed her arm, and gave her a serious look.
His back was terrible, but he wouldn't make her sleep on the couch for anything in the world. They had finished the searching for evidence some while ago; they had found nothing but that thing that appeared to be blood. They had dinner and watched something on tv. He didn't let go of his gaze on her.
"Scully, c'mon. We're not animals; we are both adults. We're mature and professional enough to share a room without second intentions."
She gasped. She did not see this coming.
"But Mulder, the rules are very clear. FBI partners can't share a room. It's our first case back on the X Files, we can't screw it up! They are watching us. They want us to fail; they want us to make a single mistake so they can split us apart."
"Well, I think that's an exception. After all, the FBI was the one who got us married in the first place. I have the right to share the room with my own wife, right?" He winked and smiled to her.
She couldn't help but smile too. Mulder could be very convincing sometimes.
"I'm gonna take a shower first, and see if I find out something more on the house. You can go to sleep, I promise I won't make any noise, okay?"
She nod with her head, not paying total attention anymore. The words were spinning on her head fast and randomly; Mulder, bed, she. She was surprised with Mulder. He was being a better husband than she thought he would be.
She lay on her side of the bed, and turn off the lights, secretly hoping that Mulder would come back soon. After what appeared to be a moment or a few hours - who would know for sure? -, she heard the noise of soft steps. He was walking at his fingertips, trying not to make any noise. It was a adorable gesture, she thought. He came to the bed, trying at his best no to wake Scully, even though she was awake the whole time. He lay too, and gave her a nice look.
"Good night Scully" he said; he got really close to her body for a moment, and kissed her softly on the cheek. He then went back to his side of the bed, turning his back to Scully. She stood there for a moment, breathless, the feeling of his lips still on her cheek; the warmth of his body still on her's.
What was wrong with her? Why was she being so affected with all of this? All she hoped was that they could solve the case as quickly as possible, go home and never talk about this damn assignment again. And yet, she couldn't stop thinking about it. Something about the way Mulder was acting was making her have weird feelings. This whole 'dedicated-husband' thing was making her see Mulder in a different light. And the worst of all, was that she was enjoying. It was a whole new side of him, a side that she never thought it would even exist. She was enjoying a little too much. She closed her eyes, hating the FBI, and Skinner, and The Falls Community, and all of the people that she could possibly blame for the assignment.
She wasn't sure about how or when it happened. She was in the sleepy-mood yet. All she knew was that her fingers were fondling his big, warm hands that were touching the pallid skin of her stomach, which was exposed from her pajamas. She felt his strong arms around her. She felt the warmth of his body all over her's again. She felt his breathe on her ear and neck. She felt his nose on her cheek. She felt his foot under her own foot.
It took her some minutes to realize what was going on. She thought at first it was a dream; it was not so uncommon to dream that she and Mulder were together. While she kept fondling his hands, her eyes opened slowly, just to see that this was nothing like a dream. This was real; she and Mulder were in a tight cuddle.
She didn't know exactly how to handle with this whole situation. Part of her was telling her to just let go and enjoy the hug that the men who was sleeping right next to her was giving. After all, it was all she wanted for a very long time – to be with Mulder. But the other part, the rational one, was telling her to wake him up and let go of his hug.
She always had been rational. Her choices were a clear prove of that. It was a part of her, the part that she had hold on to for the last six years of unexplainable situations. It was what lead her to the X Files in the first place. But in that moment, she wasn't thinking rationally. She didn't want to wake him, talk about the awkward situation, and let go of his arms. She just wanted to rest with Mulder around her, protecting her, making her feel comfortable and safe.
She took the hand that was rested on her waist, and she rolled over to be face to face to him. She passed her arms around his body, hugging him tight. He didn't wake up, but he responded to her change of position, hugging her back, as tight as it was possible. She rested her head on his chest, and closed her eyes. She wasn't worry about anything anymore. She was safe.