The Rain King

What really happened once the cow came through the roof!

Rated

Agent Dana Scully sighed and threw her book aside. She was so annoyed, having to be out here in Hicksville with this crazy case that Mulder insisted upon investigating. It increased her annoyance that all of these people with their small lives actually found this to be highly important. She had so much more to concern herself with-and yet they were primarily concerned about the weather, and whether or not this insane cowboy with his ridiculous boots and his artificial leg was actually...sigh...controlling the weather.

She rolled over on her side and gazed out the window. Boy, it looked like one hell of a storm was working its way up. Good. The townsfolk would be happy and she and Mulder could go home and work on something actually deserving of their attention.

And what of that, really? It had been four years now since she had been descending into that creepy basement office. Four years of trying to simultaneously push aside her scientific logic to try to see Mulder's side of things, and also encourage that scientific logic in order to fulfill her assignment to the Bureau. She was a woman pulled in multiple directions.

Always the overachiever, her FBI assignment was always something she wanted to excel at. The fact that her father disapproved made that desire to achieve even stronger. When the Bureau had assigned her to be Fox Mulder's partner, she suddenly found herself at odds with that goal. For the first time in her life, she worried that the Powers That Be were not actually working as they should. What if all those conspiracy theories he harbored were true? And even if they weren't, her immense respect for him and his work meant she had to always entertain the possibility. Which in turn endangered her goal for her own achievement.

As if that was not enough, she had another problem. Agent Fox Mulder made her weak in the knees in the most acute way. She was subject to physical distraction as much as any reproduction-driven human being, but she had always prized the fact that her mind was always in charge. And one geeky, bespectacled, paranoiac special agent had blown that all completely out of the water. From the moment he asked her "So how's your chemistry?" to this red hot second, he was able to liquefy her insides like no one and nothing else.

It constantly bothered her that he was able to keep her off balance like that. That sarcastic smirk, those luminous eyes, those perfectly-placed double entendres...he could immediately disarm her and that made her incredibly nervous. In the early days, she reasoned that this was only a little crush, some vestigial biologic functions, that would soon clear up as soon as the novelty wore off. Four years and a number of vibrators later, it had not.

There were days she got lightheaded when he placed his big, strong hand on the small of her back. There were days she pretended to work as she surreptitiously studied him over the tops of her reading glasses. There were days she squirmed in her chair before inventing a need for a cup of coffee or a doughnut or a bathroom break. Or, she thought with a saucy smile, a "bathroom break". Indeed.

But that wasn't even the worst of it. Agent Dana Scully did not like being out of control, in any sense. Her world was a logical, organized, predictable world of cause and effect, reason, and practicality. Except it was not any longer. Against good sense, she would jeopardize her job, her career, her life, to follow this geeky paranoiac across the globe, into strange cults and up against angered spirits. She would be shot at, she would make enemies, she would expose herself to psychotic criminals...and she would always be ready for the next round. This was NOT logical or sensical. And yet, the thought of letting him go alone, or worse, missing out, was too much to bear even under her intense scientific scrutiny.

What attracted her to Mulder? So many, many things. The usual things, for sure. He was definitely attractive. Yet she was quite certain he did not realize it, which gave him the most adorable innocence. He had enchanting eyes. He had an unaffected sense of himself. He was absolutely super-smart, funny, and clever. But the thing that drew her the most was the vast vulnerability that he hid beneath those surface attributes. Fox Mulder was a man with deep, painful demons that haunted him every single day. And as much as he enchanted her, it was that dark tenderness that truly touched her. She saw so much in him that was admirable, she wanted him to know it. She wanted to ease his pain, make him feel like he was as wonderful as she knew him to be. She wanted to soothe that ache, chase those demons, warm his soul the way he had warmed hers. She desperately wished he would let her.

She got up and stretched, peeking at the clock. It was 2 a.m. She wasn't the least bit tired. The wind wailed outside, tossing the trees more viciously now. Wondering when the rain would begin, and hoping the roof didn't leak, she went to the bathroom and lingered by the window for a second on the way back.

The entire hotel suddenly shook with a force that Scully believed must be an earthquake, although she had never felt one before. She gasped and grabbed instinctively for the table in the room, and listened to the horrifying cracks and crashes emanating from the room next door. Mulder's room. "Mulder!" she cried, her knuckles white from clutching the table as she tried to figure out how to get to his room without falling.

As quickly as it had occurred, the shaking and banging stopped. Eyes wide, heart pounding, Scully called out for Mulder again as she wrenched open her door and banged on his. "Mulder?" she yelled.

"I'm all right Scully..." he said, though he clearly sounded shaken. After a few crashes the door opened, and Mulder, clad in boxers and an undershirt, stood in front of her, covered in dust. Behind him the room was in an utter shambles, and...was that a COW lying there?

"Ohmygod Mulder!" She threw her arms around him, so glad he was all right. He put his arms around her also, but slowly, as though he were still in shock. She could feel his heart pounding through his chest into her own. "What in the hell happened here?" Without letting go of him, she peered around his shoulder at the violently rent cow and the shattered remains of the hotel roof.

"Well Scully" Mulder said, voice shaking. "It appears a cow fell through my roof."

A crowd was gathering behind them, including the town police and fire department, and the proprietress of the place, looking hilarious in her rollers and her pink bathrobe. Scully was still holding Mulder, and her hand absently began to rub circles in his back, instinctively trying to calm him.

"Excuse me folks." the police chief and fire fighters pushed into the room. Just outside the door, Mulder leaned against the wall, holding Scully to him. She laid her head on his chest and listened to his slowing heartbeat. He was going to be okay. She reached up and picked a few pieces of plaster out of his hair, and ran her fingers through it gently.

"I am SO sorry about this!" The hotel's proprietress shuffled up in her slippers, her hands worrying at her bathrobe belt, tightening and loosening it compulsively. "This is...this is NOT the way we treat guests." Scully had to hold in a laugh at the bizareness of that statement. If cows did routinely blast through the hotel's roof, she figured Mulder would have dragged her out here years ago.

"It's okay ma'am...but..."

"Oh Ms. Scully, don't worry. I'll have the guys move all of your boyfriend's belongings into your room for you. Your room isn't damaged at all!"

"Excuse me, he isn't my boyfriend...we prefer separate rooms." Next to her she felt Mulder stiffen a little.

"Oh ma'am the hotel is all full up though with the reunion. You're lucky to have a room at all." The woman had abandoned the bathrobe belt in favor of fiddling with the pins in her curlers.

Scully took a deep breath and prayed Mulder did not notice her discomfort. How in the world was this going to work? She couldn't look him in the eye.

"I'll sleep on the floor, Scully. Or in the car." As if reading her thoughts, he whispered to her reassuringly.

Now she looked up at him. "Don't be ridiculous, that would be murder on your back. We're best friends, we should be able to share a bed for one night." Her calm exterior belied the storm that was brewing inside of her. Mulder in her bed? Yes please. She felt a little squirmy just thinking about it. Oh goodness. Perfect timing-right after a long discussion with herself about all the things she loved about him!

Back in the room, they eyed the double bed a bit apprehensively, each hoping the other would make the first move, she figured. He still looked a little shaken as he sat down on the edge of the bed.

Awash in warm, unfamiliar feelings, Scully knelt down on the bed behind him and placed her hands on his shoulders, slowly beginning to massage the knots out of the tightened muscles there. A college elective course in massage therapy had taught her a few things—and she wanted to touch him, to comfort him. "Just relax." she whispered. She could feel him do that as her fingers worked into his broad, beautiful shoulders.

As she operated, she took the time to admire his strong neck, his long, strong back, the way the undershirt hugged his body in an unassuming, yet undeniably sexy manner. Her hands slid up under the lower hem to begin on his lower back, and he moaned again. Her hands gently worked up on either side of his spine, pulling the fabric of the shirt up with them. "Why don't you lie down?" she asked him. He complied, wordlessly.

While she kneaded, she pondered. It was almost like a sign—just as she was thinking about him, suddenly a COW of all things crashed through the roof of his room, rendering it uninhabitable. And now, here he was...in her bed...and she was aching for him. She kept rubbing his back because she needed SOMETHING to do with her hands, because otherwise she was going to go insane with the fidgets.

How much of a relief would it be to have her feelings out in the open? To not have to struggle to hide what she felt; to not have to wonder what he was thinking? To have an answer, either way, would be immensely calming. Dana Scully liked known quantities, not mysteries. But the risk of knowing that was...everything. Friendship. Career. Dignity. It was ironically the largest gamble of her entire life.

If she had believed in kismet, she would have looked at the cow as an unmistakeable sign. How often did cows come crashing through people's roofs? What were the chances of a flying cow falling through that EXACT roof, leaving hers unscathed? And further, that it would happen at night—placing her incredibly attractive and nearly naked partner in her bed?

But Dana Scully did not deal in kismet, chance, or miracles. She needed solid, proveable facts. She wondered if perhaps this was why her social life had always been a bit lacking. People were just too unpredictable. Especially in relationships. Family was different—she could usually count on her father to be gruff, her mother to be apologetic, Melissa to be...well...Melissa wasn't really predictable, but she was always Melissa.

Though she knew Mulder better than anyone else, he was so guarded, so mysterious that she could never quite get a handle on his true feelings in her direction. There had been gazes that lasted longer than she'd expected, a hand on her lower back, a comforting hug, even a tiny forehead kiss. Coming from a family where such types of contact were common between relatives and friends, she automatically classified those things as acts of friendship.

Of course, from an intensely private person like Mulder, who kept a fortress around his emotions, could she assume that those actions meant more? No. Dana Scully did not assume. She realized that many of her past relationships had fizzled because she had been waiting for the other person to tip their hand before she gave away her own feelings.

The clock changed to 4:00 a.m. and the blink caught her eye, shaking her from her reverie. She looked down at Mulder, whose breathing was even and measured, and whose eyes were firmly closed. He was sound asleep. Hit by a rush of tender emotion, she placed a kiss on his back right between his shoulder blades, before she snuggled down next to him and fell asleep herself.