Author's notes at the end.
This is a reply to my friend Sue's fanfic challenge.
Spoiler: none; probably takes place sometime in Season 6 or 7
Visit to a Starship
by Suzanne L Feld
Rated R for language, implied sexual situations
"It wasn't like that at all, Mulder," Scully said defensively as they half-slid down the shallow hill. "Are you sure you were in the same place I was?"
"Then what was it like?" he snapped back, reaching out to grab her forearm and steadying them both as the neared the bottom, his tie flapping back over one shoulder. "You were buddies with every-damn-body and left me to fend for myself. I sat in that damn rec room for three hours waiting for you!"
"Last time I looked, you were well over eighteen and don't need a babysitter," she replied angrily in kind. Their feet hit solid horizontal ground and both stumbled a bit. "So I made some friends, why is that such a problem?"
He glared over at her as they paused to catch their breath and balance. "Because I didn't! I didn't know a single damn person on that ship and you just merrily took off and left me alone. I'd never do that to you."
"Right, just like you've never left me behind and gone off on a wild-goose chase I've had to bail you out of!" She yanked her arm out of his grip and stomped away, as much as she could wearing three-inch heels on rocky dirt. "Well, next time we're taken to an extraterrestrial spacecraft I'll be sure to stick by your side!"
He stopped stock-still, staring at her back. "What did you just say?"
She turned just as they reached a smoother grass surface, looking back at him with thunderous brows. "What part didn't you catch?" she sneered.
"Are you admitting that we were on a spacecraft, Scully? Do you believe it?"
"I don't know what in the hell to believe. For right now I just want to find the damn car, get back to the motel, and have a two-hour hot shower," she said, putting both hands on her hips. Bright moonlight painted her navy blue and white suit in shades of gray, only her coppery hair showing any color. "I've got the keys so you'd better keep up."
Despite her short legs, knee-length skirt and heels he had to trot to catch her, and stretch his stride to keep up. "I'm surprised you wanted to leave your new friends so badly," he sniped, "And go back to Planet Earth with old boring Spooky."
"You said it, not me," she said, clipping the words out like a guillotine. "Not my problem if you couldn't make any friends while going on and on about how exciting it was to be on a real live spacecraft. And you heard what the captain said, that he had to send us both back or we'd screw up the timeline of human history."
"They ignored me!" he cried.
"And I'm not going to although I wish I could! Thank God, there's the damn car." When they got to pavement Scully increased her pace, digging the keys out of her blazer pocket and pressing the keytab's button to unlock the doors. The rented Taurus' brake lights and headlights flashed and the inside lights came on. She slid behind the wheel and barely let him get his door closed before the car was in motion, both of them buckling their seatbelts as she sped away down the dark, deserted road.
They didn't speak all the way back to the usual cheap motel courtesy of the Bureau. But as they drove, Mulder caught an unusual scent in the air—something he recognized but was unable to pinpoint. It was a rich, musky scent coming from Scully, not flowery enough to be a perfume; maybe her deodorant or shampoo? he mused. It was familiar, but something he hadn't smelled in a long, long time. He knew if he stopped thinking about it it would come to him, but it was having the effect of arousing him for some strange reason. After the way she'd treated him on the ship Mulder couldn't believe that he was reacting like that to her; maybe it was some strange cologne from one of her new friends? She'd gotten awful friendly with the only female on the bridge, the communications officer, whose name he never did catch. But then they'd only been on the ship a few hours, just enough time for Scully to meet and greet just about everyone they'd encountered. She'd disappeared for the last couple hours they were there, meeting him rather breathlessly in the teleporter room when the heavyset officer had told him it was time to go.
Once at the motel, Scully darted into her room without a word to him and as he let himself into his adjoining room, he heard the shower going already in hers. He was tired, he was annoyed, and he couldn't stop thinking about what she looked like in the shower.
It was then that it hit him and he stopped halfway across the room, staring blankly at the cedar paneling. Now he knew what that elusive, arousing odor was!
When Scully opened her bathroom door, dressed in a thick white robe and toweling her hair, she stopped dead at the sight of Mulder sitting on the edge of her bed glaring at her. "What in the--"
He jumped up and stomped over to her, grabbing both of her upper arms and yanking her to him so that the towel she was using on her hair fell wetly to the floor behind her. "Where were you, Scully, that last hour we were on the starship?" he demanded, his mouth twisted in a sneer. "Where did you and the captain disappear off to?"
Without a word, her wide blue eyes snapping up at him, Scully swiped her leg behind his ankles, effectively knocking his legs out from under him, and pushing him back with her upper body at the same time—this was one of those times he seemed to forget that she'd trained at Quantico, too. He let go as they both tumbled to the gritty brown carpet, Scully on top. She landed on him and kept rolling, but Mulder reached out and grabbed a handful of her white robe. As she kept rolling, the robe didn't and she landed on her back near the bed, the robe wide open and showing her from collarbone to toes.
"Son of a bitch!" Mulder yelled as he got to his feet, rubbing his bruised posterior. He knew the sight of a well-laid woman when he saw it—there were several unmistakable hickeys on her breasts, and fairly clear finger marks on her hips. But at least he knew without a doubt, at long last, that she really was a natural redhead. "I knew it! I damn well knew it! Damn you, Scully!"
The connecting door slammed behind him and with a heaved sigh, Scully pulled her robe together and got to her feet. The last thing she'd wanted to do was hurt Mulder, and she'd done her best to keep her extracurricular activities from him. Even now she wasn't sure why she'd tumbled so easily into the captain's bed, unless it was that glass of spicy blue ale he'd plied her with. But Holy Jesus and all the saints, he was one charismatic hunk of a man and even though she hadn't been looking to get laid, she hadn't been able to pass up this opportunity. How to tell Mulder that it was her first and only one-night-stand; hell, one-hour stand?!
Well, I don't have to explain myself to him, she decided, raising her chin as she stared over at the connecting door between their rooms. He's my goddamn partner, not my father or even husband. I mean, he's good-looking and all, but... her mind became once again taken with visions of a shorter, stocker man, one with lighter hair and eyes, wearing a gold shirt and black pants and boots...
Scully fell back on the bed, eyes going faraway, wondering if and when the Enterprise might ever come back around to 1990s Earth.
Finis
Author's Notes:
My friend Sue's challenge was to crossover the X-Files and ST:TOS, have Scully sleep with Kirk, and Mulder find out. Once I figured out how to attack this story, I laughed myself silly the entire time I was writing it which took less than an hour (not including edits). Good, not-so-clean fun!