Scully gives Mulder his birthday card. And with a flick of her wrist, makes an admission.
"Ready, Scully?" Mulder asks, already half out the door. He whirls his jacket around his shoulder, sliding his arms through in haste.
She's running late for the meeting. They both are. Yet, for once it's her fault since she's purposely stalling.
"Yep," she tosses out, pushing the chair out with the backs of her knees. Knowing she can't leave just yet, her heels stay perfectly planted to the bullpens floor.
Mulder turns and eyes her from the entryway, just waiting to stake his usual claim on her lower back.
"Oh!" She looks away from his gaze and pretends to gather their paperwork. "Go ahead without me. I forgot to print out the final autopsy results," she lies and feels his pending debate burgeon. "I'll be right behind you, Mulder," assuring him softly, knowing that he will leave but will take his sweet time doing so.
"Uh, alright. I'll wait for you there." He sounds confused as one, two, three seconds pass while Scully pretends to click through her files on the computer.
Finally, she hears his shoes move through the hallway, so she quickly grabs the card and pen she'd hidden under the files and starts writing feverishly.
Scully has always hidden Mulder's birthday card somewhere in the office for him to use his investigative skills to find. He'd returned the favor and it's been an annual game between them—a tradition of sorts since then. However, that's not possible this year, so she decided last night to make due with their current situation and surprise him at the end of the day today.
To anyone else it may seem minuscule, but to them, it's the little things that mean the most.
After glancing up at the bullpen clock and noticing that six minutes have passed, she hears Mulder's distinct footfalls heading her way so she hastily finishes the fluid motion of her pen without much thought.
"Crap!" She moves over and props the card up on Mulder's keyboard.
She snags the files and beats him to the doorway. "Sorry, Mulder, I'm ready," she mumbles, breezing past him while avoiding his stare.
—
Twenty four grueling minutes of not so subtle ass chewing later, Mulder and Scully walk back to their desks and Mulder groans at the piles of unfinished background checks waiting for him.
"This day just keeps getting better and better," he grumbles while cracking his neck.
Scully can't help but laugh as she says, "don't worry, Mulder, I won't let you suffer alone today."
Mulder looks over to see her gesturing to the card in front of him and he smiles.
Feigning shock that she yet again had remembered his birthday, he opens the generically labeled Hallmark Happy Birthday card and reads attentively.
Scully watches his smiling green eyes flick across her words while she leans against the side of his desk. Watching Mulder read is secretly one of her favorite things to do, so when she catches his eyes narrow abruptly and stop moving, she thinks she must have made a rare spelling error. It wouldn't surprise her with how fast she had written out her thoughts to him. She hadn't even attempted a reread before she stuck the card next to his lime green alien cup and hurried out to the meeting.
But as she studies his expression, she can tell he's scrutinizing something over and over. Something that wasn't just a misplaced letter. That impossibly cute smirk he'd worn since he picked up the card is now being replaced with an all out grin. Her brow arches as she searches her memory for what that something could be.
She remembers writing her usual birthday wishes to him and that she had added her special words of affection for her friend at the end like she always has. Her comments at the bottom, 'you're my best friend and even though you call me at all hours of the night, I'm still happy to see you in the morning,' flash in her mind. Then without fail, she would sign his cards with a 'Love, S.'
Just as she's about to question whether he's profiling her by analyzing her sloppy penmanship, Mulder proudly lays the card open on his desktop for the world to see and steps into her, just a breath away. He leans his face into Scully's, pressing a gentle lingering kiss directly on her mouth, engulfing hers with his own. His soft plump lips caress hers for the briefest of moments while more is the only thing that enters her mind.
She gasps as he slowly pulls away, grinning in glee. Her eyes widen at his blatant actions of affection at work and barely comprehends that he's speaking.
"Oh, Scully me too. Me too," he murmurs just inches from her mouth with his face aglow. Ignoring her stunned expression, Mulder brushes around her hip and grabs their hotel receipt. "Gotta run this to Kersh's secretary so we're not chewed out again. Be right back."
At that, he walks out and leaves a shocked, confused, and now aroused Scully in his wake.
She snaps to attention and reaches over to examine the card. Her eyes move rapidly along each word and as she makes it to the very bottom, she now reads what he did. Her jaw drops and heart pounds even harder than when his lips covered hers.
"Oh my God," she whispers while rereading the phrase again and again. Scully worries the card between her fingers, then folds it up, and lays it back on his desk.
She cannot believe she'd written down her actual feelings rather than her thoughts. Instead of the familiar signature of 'Love, S,' she had written 'I love you. Love your S.'
She's completely embarrassed and feels her cheeks flush with instant heat. She walks to her own desk and slowly sits while she nervously taps her manicured nail along her freshly kissed lip.
She quickly runs through the scenario of what will happen when she faces him again.
Mulder could think she just meant that she loves him like a best friend would love him, yet she instantly rejects that notion since she's never written nor said those particular words to him in all the six years and seven months that they've been best friends. So she decides that the most appropriate response to her fast and furious writing will be a tight hug followed by a, "Happy Birthday, Mulder."
But because he knows her so well, and because she doesn't want to ignore it anymore, she'll just wink his way, gaze into his knowing eyes, and lick her lips to savor the taste of her accidental admission.