The delivery boy's eyes widened when the door of the quiet suburban home opened, revealing a petite redheaded woman dressed only in a man's white dress shirt. The woman's eyes shined with amusion as the boy shifted uncomfortably. "Um… That'll be twenty one seventy."
Scully took the bag of Chinese food and handed the boy twenty five dollars, instructing him to keep the change before closing the door. Mulder leaned against the table in only his slacks and laughed. "You tipped him way too much," Mulder remarked.
"No I didn't. It was about twenty percent."
"Twenty percent cash and the legs of a Greek Goddess. You have no idea how valuable that is to a sixteen year old boy."
The woman chuckled. "If I'd gotten dressed he would have left with our food."
"I'm not complaining," Mulder promised. "And I'm sure he's not either."
Sauntering back into the bedroom, Scully hopped into bed and pulled out a carton with chopsticks. Mulder followed her into bed, wrapping his legs around her comfortably and taking up another pair of chopsticks. Scully smiled and held out the carton for him. They ate in comfortably silence until Mulder finally spoke.
"We're never going to get our date, are we?"
"With our luck? Probably not. This is nice though," Scully remarked before taking another bite.
"It is," Mulder agreed. "You know, it feels like we just skipped over that weird dating phase."
Scully studied him a moment. "You know, you're right. I wonder why that is."
"Probably because we've been hot for each other since you first walked into my office," he teased, and Scully rolled her eyes some with a small smile. Her cell phone rang on the nightstand, and Mulder reached over to answer it.
"Agent Scully's phone," he answered nonchalantly, and Scully gave him a warning look. "Oh, yeah sure she's right here." Mulder held out the phone to his partner and mouthed "Skinner". Scully glared at him hard, taking the phone.
"Director Skinner, what can I do for you? I told him to answer it sir, I was removing his stitches. Yes, Sir. When would you like me in? I'll be there," Scully said, before hanging up the phone and releasing a small breath she wasn't aware she had been holding.
"What does he want?"
"He didn't say. I have to go in at seven tomorrow," Scully said, though her look told Mulder everything he needed to know.
"You think he knows about us."
"…I think he might. That wasn't the first time you answered my phone, but he pried. What are we doing, Mulder?"
Mulder leaned forward and kissed his partner tenderly. "We're giving this a chance. I don't know about you but I think we deserve it."
"This what though?"
"What do you mean "this what"? Us."
"You know what I mean. How far can we go before the Bureau finds out about us and separates us? We can't move in together without raisins suspicion, we can't get married without the same problem."
"Woah woah woah, who's talking about moving in and getting married?"
Scully gave him a firm look. "Isn't that the goal of your average relationship? Well maybe not your average relationship-"
"I thought the goal was to get to know someone else more intimately than you know anyone else."
"Then what are we doing? You already know more about me than anyone."
"Scully, for once in your life would you not try and analyze something? It's a relationship, it's not supposed to be a science. I want to be with you. And I think you want to be with me too."
"At what cost, Mulder? Would you risk the X-Files to be with me?" Mulder fell quiet, knowing they both knew the answer to that question. "I'm not prepared to ask you to. I know how much it means to you. It means a lot to me too. But if they reassign me what are the odds your new partner will be half as patient with you as I am?" She pointed out. "My purpose is still to debunk your work. Someone who doesn't care about you and about the work we do as much as I do might wind up getting the X-Files closed."
Mulder was quiet for a long moment. "Scully do you really believe in what we do or do you keep the X-Files going on my account?"
Scully gave him a look that made the answer obvious before she even spoke. "I don't lie for you, if that's what you're implying. Occasionally I leave some of your escapades out of my report, but I don't twist the facts. If I disagree with your conclusions, I say so. If I agree with you, I say so," she said frankly, standing and moving to put their leftover dinner in the refrigerator.
When she returned to the bedroom, Mulder was staring pensively into space. "We can do this, Scully. We just need to be careful about keeping work separate from our relationship."
"I'm pretty sure we've said that before, Mulder. That doesn't change that this won't ever go anywhere."
"Why do we have to get married for it to go somewhere? You're my best friend, Scully. I love that I know what you're thinking without you having to say anything, I love how tolerant you, I even love your skepticism. You keep me grounded. I need you in my life. I can't help how I feel about you, and I know you feel the same way about me. If we're careful, we'll make this work."
"Are you capable of being careful, Mulder? You just answered my phone with Skinner on the line."
"I've done that before we were together too," he pointed out. "And Skinner would probably be pretty understanding, don't you think?"
"Maybe. But I'm not going to go and announce that we're sleeping together," Scully told him, sitting on the edge of the bed beside him.
"Do you want to be with me?" Mulder asked, looking to her intently.
"Of course I do, Mulder," his partner answered without hesitation, and Mulder leaned over to kiss her tenderly.
"Then let's give this a try."
After a long moment, Scully nodded her agreement. "Okay. What do I say if Skinner is on to us?"
"Well, lie I suppose. Did he believe you were taking my stitches out?"
"He seemed to."
Mulder nodded. "We'll keep up with things like that, then. It should be easy."
Scully walked into Skinner's office just before seven in the morning, head held high in an attempt to look more confident than she felt. Assistant Director Skinner leaned back in his chair when Scully entered the room, gesturing to the chair across from him.
"Agent Scully, have a seat," he said, and Scully obeyed. "I understand you've had a difficult week."
"I have, Sir."
"Well I wanted to let you know I took care of everything in San Diego. I apologize for how the treated you, and I'm going to make sure the person responsible is taken care of."
Scully relaxed some and nodded her gratitude. "Thank you, Sir. It was a very bizarre situation."
"I'm sure that it was. I do have to ask though, what was in that fax you sent to Agent Mulder?"
Scully suddenly remembered her excuse for the fax had involved Skinner and the pale woman paled even more. "…It was a document pertaining to the X-Files, Sir. Agent Mulder suspected Jackson was what he called a 'slider'. It comes from the acronym SLI, for 'street lamp interference'. Jackson's bones appeared to be slightly magnetic during the autopsy. Agent Mulder asked me to fax him the EMF data."
"Why would you cover something like that up?"
"Detective Skinner, the majority of the questions I was asked were not to do with my involvement with Jackson's death. They were to do with how we came to suspect Jackson in the first place, and then about my autopsy. It felt very suspicious, and I did not want to put Agent Mulder in jeopardy by revealing the nature of the document."
Skinner nodded pensively. "I'll look into the matter. How is Agent Mulder?"
"He's much better. I'm going to recommend to his primary that he come off pain medication tomorrow. He should be able to return to work next week."
"Good, good. That's all for now, Agent Scully. If I find something that may be relevant to your case I'll send it by."
"Thank you, Sir," Scully said, standing to go to the basement office.
For a week she cleaned and organized the basement, putting old files into storage, organizing documents. When Mulder came by with coffee and a bag of baked goods one morning, he hardly recognized the place. "Jesus. We've been visited by a cleaning goblin."
Scully didn't even look from her stack of files nearly a foot high. "You think he's related to the goblin in my dryer who steals my socks?" Finally she looked up to him with a small smile. "What are you doing here? You're on leave until Monday."
"I figured you could use some breakfast," he explained, wiggling the bag. "Also, my doctor is booked solid until Wednesday and my stitches are really getting itchy."
"Open your shirt, let me have a look," she told him, standing and moving to put on a pair of latex gloves.
"Someone's forward today," Mulder remarked with a smirk as Scully inspected his bullet wound.
"The stitches are ready to come out, but you might be getting a bit of an infection," she remarked, moving to her medical kit to fetch a pair of small scissors. "This is going to feel strange," Scully warned him as she began to snip at his stitches, pulling them free.
"I love how well you completely deflect my flirting even after you've seen me naked."
"What happened to keeping work at work and home at home?"
"I'm not working today," Mulder reminded her as she pulled the last of his stitches free and wiped the developing scar with an alcohol wipe.
"Well, I am. I have some antibiotics at home I want you to take for five days, help yourself to them when you get time."
"I'll pick them up later."
"What are you really doing here, Mulder?"
"Little office sex doesn't sound appealing?" Mulder asked, receiving a stern look from his partner before he handed her a newspaper. "UFO sighting in Ashland, Oregon."
Scully raised a brow. "Isn't that where Jackson is originally from?"
"You got it, Doc," Mulder praised, buttoning his shirt. "Sixteen people saw it. A couple of them are whackos, but one of them sounds an awful lot like you. Twenty two year old premed, apparently skeptical to a fault. She tried to check herself into the hospital for hallucinations. Great article."
Scully scanned the article briefly. "This could be any number of things. Horse shoe-shaped lights the brightness of stadium lights… why was it only seen by sixteen people?"
"The pacific northwest isn't as populated as the east coast, Scully. It's very rural. Everyone who saw it was driving on the I-5 between the hours of eight and nine in the evening. What's the verdict on me flying?"
"Well, it should be fine now that the wound is healed enough to get by without stitches. But Mulder I don't think this is something worth flying into Oregon for."
"Oliver Jackson's body is magnetic, was cremated for no apparent reason, and days later there's a UFO sighting in his home town? You've got to be kidding me, Scully. If this isn't worth flying to Oregon for, what is?"
Scully sighed some; Mulder had a point. "I'll book a flight."