Acknowledgments: Thank you to ElizabethAnnfanfic for giving me helpful comments to make the story more robust. I tend to take backstories for granted and not explain it explicitly. Some of them I will definitely write into a separate story one day.

Disclaimer: I don't have money.

Spoilers: Through First Person Shooter.

This story is set before Theef through all things. I got the idea from a line in Trust No 1. If Scully invited him to his bedroom and was surprised about doing it, then their first time together wasn't during all things. And in all things, it seemed as though Scully was struggling with her relationship with Mulder. So they couldn't have been together then. Here's how I think it went down when the cameras weren't rolling...

The Basement Tango

"We're adults. I'm sure we can get past this," she said. Mulder must have had his panic face on for her to say this. What curious choice of words to bring comfort.

He certainly didn't plan on coming to Scully's to get laid. His intentions were pure when he showed up at her place an hour earlier. From the quick messages he'd gotten in the afternoon, the case, or more appropriately the non-X-file, which he thought would bring hope, backfired. He wanted to make sure she was alright.

"Knock, knock. I come bearing gifts."

"Mulder, what are you doing here? Is that mine?"

"I can smell fungus on pizza from a mile. Here, I swiped it from the pizza guy. It's paid."

"Thank you," she said as she mechanically took a slice and had him plunk down the box on her table.

"I hope I'm not interrupting. Looks like you were having a party." He gestures to the half-empty bottle of Pino Noir.

"Yep, with the American Journal of Medicine. Help yourself."

He took a slice, found himself a glass of wine and plopped beside her. She didn't even look his way.

This is not good, he thought to himself. A medical journal can't be that interesting.

She was still pissed at him for having her do an autopsy on a woman who claimed to have been abducted by aliens three years ago and was allegedly left barren. The victim was found dead in her bed and miraculously pregnant. The MUFON guys brought this police case to his attention when the clerk at the morgue noticed her right away as a former member. He honestly believed that Scully would find hope that a barren alien abductee was with child.

"I thought you'd be at the office when I got back."

"Mulder, I left at 6. I had to do the autopsy at 7:30 this morning. I was hardly skipping out early."

"Didn't you have to write your report?"

She took a moment to size him up. "Are you spying on me? Have I slacked off?" She got up, handed him a folder and settled again on the couch. "Here."

He read it and felt even worse. So that's why it wasn't an X-file. It turned out that she had a tumor in her temporal lobe which caused her to have delusions, and her vertigo was not caused by a relapse but because she was 8 weeks pregnant. Based on the DC Police report, she had been exhibiting signs of depression after ending an intense five-month relationship. Scully believed that this, combined with the fear of going through the illness again and hormonal changes, had led her to take her own life… but not without going out with a bang.

Oh my God, he thought, unable to fathom how ironic the situation was and how much it must have pained Scully to deal with a pregnant DB. "You okay?"

She took a deep breath as if to consider the question and in grand Scully fashion declared, "I'm fine."

He was about to protest the obvious lie when she started going on a roll.

"You know, Clara Barks got it figured out. I mean, except the whole suicide thing of course." She glanced at Mulder as if waiting for him to debate this. But he sat there quietly, waiting for her to get whatever it was out of her chest.

"She was sucking the marrow out of life after her diagnosis. Maybe she had a point in not trying too hard to live according to what people expect of you. "

"What, you mean you never fantasized about your third grade teacher's life of sex, drugs and rock and roll?"

"I didn't find any other drug in her system except for MDMA. But I did find three distinct sperm donors. Three guys in 48 hours. How do you even find the time to be with three guys in a week?" She slump back on the couch. "I should get out more. Instead, here I am on a Friday night stuck with," she looks at the Journal, "Evaluating Factors for Hyperglycemia. I should be drunk and getting laid."

"Cheer up, Scully. You're half-way there," he picked up the bottle, shook it in her face and emptied the last drops into her glass. "If you're good, maybe we could do something about the latter part." He waggled his eyebrows mischievously.

Scully pursed her lips as if to consider the proposition and looked dangerously at him. Her cheeks had since become blushed and her pupils dilated from the alcohol. From where he was seated, inebriated Scully was looking very sexy...and feral.

"I do need to get my ya-yas out," she said with a flirtatious glint in her eye. Scully must be really drunk to even consider this.

"What, you mean shooting the crap out of Jade Blue Afterglow didn't do it for you?" He was trying desperately to keep this conversation light, just in case. He didn't want his hopes up.

"Well, she may have the body, but she ain't got the moves." Mulder chuckled at the memory then quickly got nervous when a very provocative imagine of Scully in leather flashed in his brain. "I could prove it to you," she whispered as she got up.

He gulped .

So that was how he got into this situation. Scully was waiting for a sign that he'd follow through with his 'reward'.

"How 'bout it, G-man?" Her breath tickled just beneath his ear. "We're adults. I'm sure we can get past this. We could have rules, like Elaine and Jerry."

She must really want it if she's projecting Seinfeld's version of friends with benefits. This was a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. He never would have pegged sex with Scully as a one-night stand. He loved her. God he LOVED her. He wasn't sure he could do a Wham-Bam-Thank-You-Ma'am to Scully, do the naked pretzel with her and pretend it didn't happen. But then again, wasn't this the woman who asked him to father her child? Scratch that. Donate to the cause of impregnating Scully? He wasn't quite sure where he would have fit in if they had been successful with the procedure. He never asked. And so this balance of where he stood in Scully's life has to be played out just right. If he refused on the grounds that he cared too much to just 'fuck' her, he could scare her away forever.

There was, however, an ideal time in the not so distant past when he could have bared his soul and she would have fallen into his arms. He wasn't that hopelessly clueless. In fact, he had used this against her once or twice. But when the moment came to tell all, he cowered and let his fear of losing her as his work partner in search of the Truth over rule the possible joy of having her in his life. So he called the one woman who was safe, and the one she detested. Ever since then, his relationship with Scully changed. It was imperceptible to anyone from the outside. But he felt that while before there was always a restless undercurrent, this time around it was almost blasé.

"Are you coming?" Scully was seductively calling out from her bedroom, one hand on the door frame, the other on her hip. She had unbuttoned her blouse and her black bra was revealing luscious cleavage.

Take whatever is offered and be happy with it, he thought. That seemed to be the only alternative. He didn't have much time on his hands and he had lots on his to do list before he left this earth. So he got off the couch and strutted to join her in the bedroom.

****

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