Title: Mulder, Shut Up
Author: Fatcat
Rating: PG
Category: MSR
Spoilers: Everything up to November 5, 2000.
Summary: This is a possible happening after All Things
Disclaimer: I don't like season 8 so far so I think I'll continue to play with your creations. Thanks again to CC, FOX, 1013 and all those others for the use of their characters.
Feedback always appreciated.
Dana Scully sat in the passenger seat of the rented Taurus with her eyes shut. Fox Mulder, her ever-talking partner was doing what he did best—talking and driving. He continued to expound on his latest theory about the case they had just wrapped up.
"Mulder! Shut up, PLEASE!" Scully nearly shouted, glaring at him. "I just cannot discuss this case right now. Okay?"
"Sure, Scully, okay. You feel okay?" Mulder glanced at her with a look of shock and concern on her face.
"I'm fine. I just need some downtime." Scully said as she shut her eyes again.
"Um, okay. Just let me know if you want to stop. Do you mind if I play the radio?"
She shook her head no. Some music might be just the thing now.
On they drove, past lunch, past dinner, trying to get out of the Sierras to Sacramento in time to grab a night's sleep before boarding their flight home the next day. The sun was setting when they finally pulled into a motel that looked as if it met FBI standard—cheap.
Vince's Trattoria the sign said. They chose this motel because it had a fairly decent looking restaurant up by the front office. Dana sat in the car while Mulder checked them in. She had not spoken two words to him the entire drive after asking him to shut up. The weird thing about the drive was that he did just that. Not a word had spilled from his beautiful mouth for the entire day.
He climbed back into the car and drove back to their rooms. He handed her the keys and moved to unload the trunk. She had both doors open by the time he dumped their luggage.
"Scully, they have room service here, if you don't want to go up to the restaurant to eat." He waited for her to reply.
She started to turn away, then turned back. "I…I want to go up to the restaurant to eat after I get cleaned up." Her voice sounded rusty—as if she had not used it for years not hours.
"Okay, just knock when you're ready." He said.
The rooms were surprisingly nice. They were clean and freshly decorated. Within the hour she gave a quick rap on the door joining their rooms. He pulled it open so quickly she knew he had been waiting for her knock.
They walked through the soft California night toward the restaurant. The parking lot was crowded but there wasn't a waiting line. The restaurant looked small from the outside, but when they stepped into the main dining room they could see that it really was a series of small rooms that had been opened to make more room for seating.
They were ushered into a small alcove type room tastefully decorated and dimly lit. The tables were covered with sparkling white clothes with the prerequisite Italian Flag colors of Green, Red and White dominating the table settings. A small candle flickered in the middle of the table, creating a very nice but unexpected ambiance.
Dina, the owner Vince's daughter, seated them. She was a slender girl with laughing brown eyes and a ready smile. She turned this smile on Dana and for some reason she could not help but smile back as Dina explained the specials of the day.
Dana glanced back at Mulder and was shocked by the look on his face. He obviously had been watching her exchange with Dina and did not expect her to look at him.
There was a look of such anguish on his face. She thought at first he was looking at Dina. She bore a small resemblance to Mulder's sister Samantha and the first thought that flashed through her head was of his pain over her loss. She immediately dismissed this thought as he guiltily looked down at the menu.
He had been looking at her with that look of pain on his face. She caused his pain. 'What now, Mulder,' was her first thought. Then she deliberately chose to ignore it. She had her own burden of pain to carry. She wasn't sure her size 0 shoulders were up to picking up any more of his burden today.
Their dinner was exceptional. Scully had the minestrone soup. Mulder had the heart attack on a plate—a dish called Land, Sea, and Italy. It came with a generous salad, followed by a huge plate with a small steak, a cod filet and a small dish of spaghetti with meat sauce.
The soup was the best minestrone she had ever had. It came with small round loaves of bread, hot from the oven. It was served with a lovely wine that Dina had picked out for them. It was a local wine and neither agent had heard of the brand before. The entire meal seamed to melt away the stress of the day. Of course, the wine probably helped the most.
Before the meal was over, Mulder was feeding small bites of his food to Scully. She had taken to buttering the bread for them both and was soon reciprocating by feeding Mulder bites of bread and butter dipped into her soup. Neither noticed when the room began to clear and they were left alone. They had fallen into their long pattern of ease. They both had brilliant minds and were capable of playing devil's advocate on a wide variety of subjects. A casual listener would be shocked to learn this. They sounded like any garden variety married couple making up after an argument.
"Is anyone ready for some desert?" Dina asked. "We're closing down in a few minutes, but we have plenty of time for your desert."
"What do you have?" Dana smiled.
"We actually have a limited dessert menu. We feel we have chosen the best of the best though. We have a triple chocolate cake served with vanilla ice cream and hot fudge sauce and we have spumoni ice cream. What will it be?"
Mulder looked up and asked if they could have one of each to go along with another bottle of the wine they had been drinking.
Dina smiled and said she would see what she could do for them.
Minutes later they were walking back toward their rooms desert, wine, corkscrew, and glasses in hand.
"Wait a minute, Scully. What's this?" Mulder pulled her over to the side of their building. A redwood gate opened to disclose a huge swimming pool and patio area. "I think we're on to something here." He smiled.
Dana toed off her heels and walked to the steps of the pool. She bent over and rolled the legs of her pants up above her knees. She walked down into the water and over to the side of the pool. She sat on the side swishing her feet back and forth in the water.
"I'll take my cake here, if you please." She smiled up at Mulder.
He for once seemed to be at a loss for words.
"I miss living in California. When you're back east you forget about how wonderful it is here during most of the year. When my dad was stationed in San Diego, I fell in love with this state. I don't believe I didn't relocate here after I graduated. Mom always said she wanted to come back here when they retired….." Scully's voice trailed off.
A look of sudden understanding flashed over Mulder's face.
"It's you dad's birthday, isn't it Scully?" He said. "That's why you were so..."
"Bitchy? This morning was particularly hard. We had been interviewing all those elderly couples at the home where the murders occurred and I almost lost it. I kept asking myself why those people survived and my Dad didn't. Why did those women remain with the love of their lives and my Mom was so lonely. And then it got really weird, Mulder. I began to ask myself why it seemed I would never have what they had--someone in my life that had been there for me through everything. I just lost it in the car. I'm sorry."
His silence scared her. He was gazing into his cup of spumoni with such intensity, she thought he had found the answers to all the questions of the universe in there. She touched his arm.
When he finally looked up at her the look of anguish she had seen on his face was back.
"Mulder, what is it?"
"Scully…" He was suddenly without words. He swallowed and tried again. In a low voice he said, "I know you want a normal life, Scully. You want the husband and the kids and the palm trees in the back yard and so much of what has happened to you since we met has removed that from the realm of possibility. I'm so sorry for all the things that have happened to you since we became partners. I feel I am to blame for many of the rotten things that have happened, if not directly, indirectly. The very fact you are my partner has made you a target of sorts. I would give up my life to give you back Melissa, or Emily, or the ability to have a child—even if it was with someone else. I've known this for some time but I've ignored it. I haven't wanted to think of a life without you. I love you. You are my everything. You are the one I want to grow old with. You fill my mind and my heart and my soul with strength and love and the courage to go on day by day. But we both know I'm a selfish self-centered jerk. What I need to continue isn't the most important thing anymore. It's what you need. You need the stability of all the normal things and you're not going to find them while we work together. You should consider quitting the X Files, maybe even the FBI." He finally stopped rambling and sat staring into the water.
His shoulders were hunched as if he was expecting a blow.
"Mulder, just when did you come to this conclusion." Dana asked.
He stole a glance at her and turned fully to face her. She was calmly eating her dessert. He became mesmerized as she swirled the spoon in the bowl and picked out each bite. Just enough chocolate cake, just enough vanilla ice cream, just enough fudge sauce and up to her mouth. He watched as she smiled as the combination of flavors spread over her tongue and she swallowed. Her small pink tongue ran over her lips and captured the final taste of chocolate then flicked over the spoon seeking every morsel.
He swallowed hard and said, "While we were driving in the car, I realized you were upset. It started me to thinking and I guess I finally realized that you don't smile much anymore Scully. You smile at strangers more readily than you do at those around you. You have a beautiful smile and I miss it. If someone else could give you happiness, so be it. Is that dessert as good as you make it seem, Scully?" He finally had to ask.
"How…valiant." She said as she took yet another bite. This time her small white teeth scraped the spoon as she pulled the chocolate into her mouth.
Mulder was getting more and more uncomfortable. Here he was trying to do the noble thing and let her go and all she could do was eat her damn chocolate dessert as if it were the best tasting thing in the world.
"Scully, say something. I just spilled my guts to you and all you are doing is eating that dessert as if it's the only thing left to eat in the entire world."
"Mulder, Shut up." She said as she stuck a spoonful of the dessert into his mouth and smiled. She stood up and put the empty bowl on the edge of the pool. The night was so beautiful, just like she remembered California.
"Did you ever see a comedian named Gallagher?" Scully asked. "He used to have a saying about Californians, let's see…I think it went something like this: Californians are like breakfast cereal—those that not fruits or nuts are flakes. I always thought that the state government had secretly hired him to make California less attractive to immigrants. Too many more people and the beauty of this state will be ruined." She stretched her arms up to the heavens and threw her head back. "I love California nights. Can you smell all the things in bloom here? Do you know that they use geraniums for fences out here? I've always felt more free here than anywhere else in the world. Who knows, maybe I'm just one of those nuts at heart."
She turned and faced Mulder. The look of surprise on his face only increased as she began to strip off her clothes and toss them to the edge of the pool. She was in her bra and panties when she slid into the water. A few feet away, she tossed two wet slips of fabric to the side to join the rest of her clothes.
"The only thing I want to hear from you, Fox Mulder, is the sound of your clothing hitting the ground and your body diving into this water. It's my turn to talk and you're too far away for me. Do we have an understanding?" She grinned.
"Yes, Madam!" He grinned as he quickly stripped and dove in. He stopped less than a foot from her.
"Mulder, this is hard for me so I want you to just listen for a moment." She said holding up her hand as he reached for her.
"Mulder, you are what I want. I don't deny when I was younger, I wanted the husband and the kids and the house and the palm trees, but I grew up. I am an adult woman who had made every choice in the past seven years voluntarily. I realized when I saw Daniel last year that I was happy with my path in life in every way but one. I don't want to feel like I am walking this path alone. I want to feel that I am walking through this life with a lover and soul mate as well as a professional partner. I want that person to be you, Mulder. I love you. I don't want to change a thing about my life except the fact that you and I are two incredibly stubborn people bent on keeping our feelings for each other secret while the world makes bets on whether or not we are intimate."
She floated over to him and put her arms around his neck, easing her entire body against his. She could feel his heart beating quickly, could feel his arousal, and could feel his breath on her face. She raised her eyes to his and smiled as she leaned closer and licked a small smear of chocolate from his lip.
"Why don't you and I use our considerable brains to figure out a way to open up to each other and fool the world instead of the other way around." He smiled back at her.
"That's a good idea Mulder, but first, just Shut Up and kiss me."