Hi, X-Philes! It's been ... oh my gosh, has it really been six months since I've written anything on here? Whoa. Well, I'm back and about to do a shameless plug:

I've been terribly, wonderfully and frighteningly busy working on my original novel that I'm hoping to self-publish by June 2015. If you like heroes, villains, strong female characters, magic, mystery, and a little humor sprinkled throughout your stories, then it's quite possible you'll like my work in progress, "The Fell." ;) For more info, follow me on Twitter at "lyndseygoehrig" and like me on Facebook by searching for "Lyndsey Goehrig, Author" or going to Facebook Dot Com Slash authorlyndseygoehrig

That being said, I needed a SERIOUS break from my WIP. I mean, I love my story, but we needed to just take a moment and be apart for a bit and see other people. Or, for me to see other characters. Hence where this little one-shot comes in.

I love X-Files and always go back to it, whether in writing, reading or watching. I had started writing a random blurb that was just for giggles that evolved into this fic below. "Vanilla" is told from Agent Pendrell's perspective about the last bits of the episode "Tempus Fugit" in season four and first bits of the episode "Max," also in season four. A few minor liberties have been taken, so don't get cranky about it. ;)

I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think, because reviews are the lifeblood of writing for me. That, and caffeine. xo

VANILLA
BY HARPERROSE87

If there's one night in my life that really sticks out for me, it's the night I died.

Bittersweet and metallic, my own blood flooded my mouth, the taste of it both satisfying and revolting. Despite its thin nature, the viscosity of it choked my throat, the small passageway blocked by the offensive liquid. I could feel the way my neck broke into a sheen sweat almost immediately. It was an embarrassing occurrence, given how close she was to me; I've always kept myself pristine and tailored, and lately for only one reason in particular. Now, that same reason was crouched over me, watching me sputter and fumble, words pathetically eluding me yet again in her presence.

I never did have the guts to properly communicate when she was near, though. How could I? I was nothing more than a blithering fool compared to her eloquence. God, she struck me where it hurt with her intelligence and poise, not to mention her exquisite looks. She inadvertently robbed me of every false confidence I managed to convince myself of every weekday morning in the rear-view mirror of my car. A coy half-smile was all it ever took to undo me-the kind of smile her tall, lanky partner somehow failed to notice. What was he, blind? Dense? Homosexual? No, not homosexual. Just stupid, not unlike me. Because if he did notice it, he certainly would've acted on it sooner. Wouldn't he?

As if it really mattered now.

She was above me, hovering over me so intimately. I tried to make light of the situation in the silence of my mind by pretending the close proximity was out of mutual attraction rather than from the medical response switch that had been flipped inside of her. She stooped low the moment she saw me lying on the ground; I could feel a growing pool of my own blood settling on my chest. Her auburn hair made a curtain around her face, framing her delicate features and highlighting the icy tone of her warm, widely-rounded eyes. Through my struggle to breathe against the burning pain, I saw my own blood splattered on her chin and jaw; she was assessing the situation in visible shock.

Hell, I was shocked too. I mean, I certainly didn't expect to be shot while carrying two beers and a Birthday Girl Special back to her table. How many times had I been to that dimly-lit joint before? Too many-but hey, it was a hangout for most of the agents who actually worked nine-to-five, unlike she ever did. Even the week of her birthday, she was M.I.A. for ages, turning up in the bar in the company of some uniformed officer sans her partner. Of course she'd be sans her partner and with another guy-why couldn't she ever just be sans anyone?

But, I digress.

I know I had a few too many when I first saw her trying to squeeze her way into the packed bar. The bartender had just made the last call, but I wasn't concerned. I had a half of beer left to nurse, and my better instinct told me that would be enough. Some time before, I had loosened the red noose around my neck in response to how the alcohol had considerably warmed my core temperature. I wasn't drunk by any means, but falsely-confident enough that I boldly caught her arm as she passed me. She was wearing a navy coat with slightly oversized shoulders, probably to both fend off the D.C. winter chill and to make up for her petite stature so her peers would consider her tougher than she looked.

"Hey!" I shouted; my voice was a little more strained than I intended it to be. She turned and looked at me in surprise. "Birthday girl!"

"Agent Pendrell," she said with a small, blossoming smile as I dragged her closer with my own plastered on my face. "How are you doing?"

I began to panic. She was so close now. She smelled amazing. Was it lavendar? Vanilla? Maybe both? "I-I have something for you." My hands flew to my suit jacket. Shit. I felt around frantically, consulting both the exterior and interior pockets. What the hell? Oh great, this is just great. Got to stall her! "Where have you been?"

"I've been, uh, gone," she replied as I cursed silently, giving up my search for her present.

I'm linguistically less than impressive. "Oh. Uh …" An idea flew into my mind, making up for my missing gift. "Can I buy you a drink?" I asked, my eyes wide as I looked at her. She seemed distracted-a drink seems like the best thing for her. It was her birthday, anyway, so of course I should buy her a drink.

"No, it's okay," she replied quickly, her tone drooping. She glanced to her right for a moment and adds, "I'm, um, with somebody."

"Oh," I commented with obvious annoyed disappointment. Of course she's with somebody, you idiot. Look at her! Why wouldn't she be? My eyes followed the trail hers made to a small, round table across from us where a man with dark, cropped hair and broad shoulders in camouflage sat. He stared back with a look on his face that could only be described as perplexed concern.

My less than sober state caused me to laugh quite childishly for my earlier assumption. She's working-of course she's working! "Well, let me buy him a drink too!" I concluded, my face lighting up at the quick thinking I've managed despite the beer I've consumed.

She hesitated only for a millisecond; there was so much hope in that snippet of time as she arched her brow. She was somewhere between a smile and frown as she replied. "No, it's okay," she argued, reaching for my arm in an attempt to stop me as I turned toward the bar.

No. You won't deter me. I wasn't having any of her resistance. Not that night. Not ever again. I had made up my clouded mind that if any night was appropriate to grow a set, it was that one. "No, no, no!" I reached up my right hand, fingers splayed as I tried to get the oversized man's attention. "I insist, I insist. Bartender? Bartender!" I'm satisfied when the blue-shirted man comes at my beckon; my palm hit the counter with an air of masculine pride.

"Yeah?" the bartender asked, attentive to my request.

"Set me up with a couple of, uh …" I began, the gears spinning wildly around in my mind. I want to impress her. What do I get? Quick-think! "... Uh, 'Birthday Girl Drinks' over here!" I finished, satisfied with my order. "Can I have a couple of … Nah, let me get another beer and whatever you think says, 'Birthday' for the lady." My confidence doubled in size when I felt her pat my shoulder in surrender, the gesture indicating I had won. By the time I turned back to look at her, she was gone, seated at the small table the uniformed officer was at facing the exit.

The burly bartender didn't take long to make the drinks, most likely because he was eager to shut the bar down for the night. It was pretty crowded in there, mostly with agents I had seen around at work from time to time, a few civilians sprinkled in the mix. I nabbed the freshly-opened beer and the cocktail glass dressed with a straw that the bartender slid toward my pre-existing bottle after tossing more than enough cash his way. I didn't have time to worry that the tip was far more generous than necessary, considering the money I had already spent on booze before she arrived.

Little did I know that I had far less time than I realized.

The drinks were icy cold under my fingertips; I could smell the edge of liquor mixed with the fruity notes of juice emanating from the drink specially prepared for her. I was lost in thought, too lost to notice anything but the ramblings of my own mind as I tried to politely hurry through the bodies crowded near the bar. Oh God. Really? Is she really seeing this guy? Alright, just be cool. Be cool! Besides … I get her-I share her love of science. We've got that going for us. I bet G.I. Joe doesn't even have a clue about-

It happened fast; I caught a glimpse of her rising from her seat, the thick navy fabric of her coat billowing behind her like a cape with her sudden movement. Time dripped through a clogged sieve. Her chair's feet scraped the floor with a groan as she pushed upward against it, her dominant hand stretching automatically to her hip.

As if on autopilot, my feet continued to move toward the dangerous intersection of darkness and light that I didn't yet see, my brow briefly wrinkling as I caught how high her one was arched as she stood on a diagonal from me. I didn't remember if I ever saw the look she wore before, but it wasn't one that was hard to interpret in retrospect.

Her voice pierced the air, alarmed and protective. "Get down!" she screamed with urgency, her fingers brushing their target of her holster. The snap of the gun being freed from it echoed through the tunnel of sounds I stepped into. Still clutching the drinks, I turned toward where both her azure eyes and the nose of her weapon were so frighteningly focusing.

That's when I saw him. It was only for a blink of an eye, though.

Ordinarily, I wouldn't have given him the time of day. It wasn't anything personal. It was just that he looked so … average. Tall-taller than me-and relatively slim with a thick head of dark hair cut in nearly the same fashion as her partner's was. Except, he had a bushy mustache under his bony nose that emphasized his wrinkled scowl. He was wearing a dark suit and white shirt, both a little undone-pretty standard, considering the area of the bar and the time of night. There was little that was standard about him, though.

I knew the next sound all too well, mainly from ballistics tests-I mean, I hardly ever got out of the lab. Not that I minded, really. I liked the work I was assigned.

A round was fired.

As my eyes shifted back to where she was looking, finally fully seeing what she was responding to, a jolt of weighted heat pierced to the right side of my chest. It was fire, hot and fast; it shook me. It blazed through the Calvin Klein suit I was wearing without forgiveness, a clean circle left in its wake as it traveled further. The bottles and glass slipped from my fingers, cold liquid sloshing forward to hit my button-down shirt as they descended. Immediately my knees buckled, submissive to the powerful tyrant that now had command over me. There was no grace as I fell. I dipped backward, catching her locked stance with her gun expertly aimed at what I could only assume was the standard-looking man on my way down to the floor.

A second round, then a third was fired from her gun with very little hesitation.

I heard a scurry of people above me. Screams of panic mixed with feet pounding into action as the patrons rushed toward the exit despite her advisement. Tables rocked around me, people shoving themselves away with sudden urgency. Silverware clattered to the floor, glass broke nearby. My vision was clouded, my eyelids forced into the unthinkable task of remaining open despite the ache that grew in my lung with each shaky breath.

I tried to see as much as I could. There wasn't really much to look at in the place. The boring tan walls were decorated in gallery-matted photos of a time long since gone, of people who had already walked the path I was just forced onto. Bowled lights trimmed with antiqued bronze metal cast a seductive glow over the atmosphere, the popcorn ceiling overhead a bit dingy from the shadows the light made. I couldn't really see them, but the tiles under my head were cold-the complete contrast of what my body now was.

I was on fire.

I heard her scream to G.I. Joe to get down and stay down. I guess it wasn't a date after all, I pondered idly, as if I had all the opportunity to in the world. She came flying to my side, her knees digging into the tiles as her hands snapped into action.

"You're going to keep breathing, Pendrell," she demanded as she watched me sputter. "Do you hear me?" I struggled to take a breath against the unholy ache inside. So quickly her hands moved to the paisley tie that was strung around my neck, freeing me of it. The buttons of my dress shirt slipped open under her skilled fingers that drove themselves through my chest hair on my pectorals.

This was never how I imagined the circumstances of her investigation of my body to be. I wouldn't be honest if I didn't admit to a respectful fantasy every now and then. After all, a guy could dream, right? Seeing her above me from my angle, I watched how her hair danced as she frantically examined my wound. Even her gentle, practiced pressure she applied was the straw that broke my proverbial back, the agony of the shot I had taken maximized by her prodding. She was only trying to help, I reminded myself. God, she was all that kept me pushing forward.

Her small hand was strong as it held my jaw, her thumb dangerously close to my lips as she tried to keep my mouth open. Her own mouth was wide in horror. I had no idea how I looked, but judging from the glimpses I caught of her paleness through slotted eyes, I must not have looked too good. I rolled my head toward my left shoulder, the puffs of air I grasped for making my torso shake.

"He's getting away!" some squeaky female voice announced. I watched her beautiful eyes turn toward the exit and caught a whiff of her perfume from the gentle breeze her locks caused. The stirred air coasted across my emblazoned face, refreshing but hardly enough to combat the heat of my wounded body. Two things crossed my mind immediately-I swore I smelled vanilla, and she was leaving me.

"I'll be right back," she assured, rising valiantly to pursue the standard-looking man, her weapon tight in her grasp. Her heels clicked on the tiles anxiously, ringing further and further away from me. I couldn't stop her even if I wanted to, and I wasn't entirely sure if I wanted to. After all, a killer was on the loose. Yet when she left, I felt my strength leaking through the puncture in my chest as fast as my blood was pouring out.

I never thought of speaking to her on topics of depth before-how a person could be another's strength, nuances that make a person attractive, poetic crap and yadda, yadda, yadda. I mean … me? Tell her? Hah! Yeah, right. Fat chance.

Except, when she left, it was all I wanted to do. I wanted to tell her how I thought the way she pursed her lips when she was deep in thought was wildly attractive, or how I thought that blue was my favorite color on her. I wanted to tell her that there were so many times that I cleared my schedule (and later forced to work late) just to accommodate any crazy requests she had under her partner's direction-only because it was her making the request. I wanted to tell her that despite my shortcomings, I had something to offer, that I was a good, honest person who could take care of her and value her.

Now, my own blood flooded my throat, silencing me.

I could hear the faint wail of sirens amidst the shocked and frightened voices of people above me. Tires screeched to a halt just on the other side of the wall across from me. People were staring down at me with horrified looks, like I was a circus side-show act and they had just spent a quarter to bear witness to the Bloodied Beast. Breathe, I reminded myself, as if the involuntary function just became voluntary. G.I. Joe was one of my observers. I saw the guilt plain as day on his face. Breathe.

"Let her through! Let her through!" I heard the bartender holler. "Move over this table! Give her room!" Dress shoes and sneakers alike scooted across the floor, squeaking as I heard people scramble in different directions. I heard the returning click of her heels that followed the slamming of the front door and immediately felt comforted.

She came back down to my side with crisp, white table linens balled up in her hand. I tried to put a game face on as she pressed down onto my wound with the cloth, but I couldn't help but cringe at the pain of the pressure. "We've got paramedics on their way," she said in a calm voice over me, her red hair dipping within inches of my face. My labored breaths blew into the strands of it; it danced with ethereal grace back and forth across her blood-spotted cheek. "You're going to the hospital. You're going to be okay."

I tried to nod. I didn't know if it came across or not.

"We still haven't celebrated my birthday, Pendrell," she warned, her arms tight against my chest as she pressed deeper to clot the wound, "and I'm not going to let you off the hook like this."

It was just like her to try to make someone smile despite their bleak fate. I may have been a fool for not telling her everything I wanted to sooner, or at the very least for not asking her out, but I wasn't completely stupid. I knew what hand I had been dealt.

So, I smiled. I let her believe that I believed in what she said.

She turned her focus back to the exit after that; I could hear a gurney being wheeled into the tight space, the bartender still barking at people to move aside and give the EMTs room. She stood; I watched from below as she updated the medics. "This man has a puncture wound to his right lung," she explained quickly. "He needs to be intubated immediately."

The way the medics handled me was far less soothing than how she had, though I knew I was in trained hands despite it. I saw the wrinkled brow of the man who moved over me, his eyes cast down onto the area of the holster I wore still attached to my belt. "He's an FBI agent," she defended, coming back down to my side and pulling my gun from its resting place. Her eyes were cool, her voice firm. "And he's not going to die."

But I did die.

Not right away, though.

I was wheeled off through the bar first and into the back of an ambulance while strangers removed and added things to me in an effort to make good on her earlier demand. The last glimpse I caught of her was her looking back at me over her shoulder as I was being rolled away toward the door.

I let my eyes close after that. After all, like I said, there wasn't much else to see anyway.

They never opened again.

I died in a hospital bed in Washington D.C. that night surrounded by white walls and white sheets. The frenzied tune of monitors echoed in my ears as my bodily responses caused them to come to an unfortunate crescendo. Their flurry was soon joined by another of doctors and nurses who tried to hold on to my pulse but failed.

I didn't want to let her down.

Yet, I chose to let go.

The last thought that filtered through my mind as I considered my choice was odd to even me, but one that made me sick with regret:

She never knew my first name.

I had been so scared to speak to her that it was only on my deathbed that I realized she never knew me-she never truly knew who I was. I thought she did, but how could she? How could she when I never even told her my name? I also contemplated why she never asked. Didn't she at least care to humanize me beyond the "agent in the lab?"

Within the span of seconds, I felt both admiration and hatred for her. Here I was, so caught up in following her like a lovesick puppy that I failed to see how she hadn't even stopped once to notice. She was no different than her partner in that way, he always running off toward the next light in the sky while she tagged along, hoping to win his approval.

Selfish.

We both were selfish.

I wanted to tell her that I was sorry-that I was sorry for not speaking up sooner, that I was sorry for putting her on a pedestal. I also wanted to tell her that I wasn't sorry-that I wasn't sorry for making the choice I was about to make, that I wasn't sorry for letting go. I knew I had to. She was never meant to be mine, anyway. I smiled softly with the realization.

She was his.

She always had been.

Did she know it?

I hoped she did.

I wanted to tell her to not be like me, to not wait until she was knocking on death's door to allow herself to feel, to confess, to engage. I wanted to tell her to live, to take deep, satisfying breaths while she could, to watch something worthy of a final visual memory, that I knew she wore vanilla on her vanilla skin, to sip on Birthday Girl Specials, to let her hair down once in a while, clock out at five and to not feel guilty about it. I wanted to tell her that despite my affection for her, he was perfect for her, and just about everyone else knew it except for her.

I also wanted to tell her my name.

I drew in a final breath; it was crisp and tasted like chemicals from the sterile environment it existed in. I pretended instead it was vanilla.

"Sean," I whispered.

My name was Sean.