W as White

Nowadays - Outside the Unremarkable House

Scully was perched on a stepladder, concentrated on her task of the day, her right hand handling a brush while her left one was securing her. She was painting the wooden boards covering the facade of the porch.

"Hey, Rapunzel, how you doing?"

She jerked at the sound of the familiar voice, splashing drops of white paint in the air.

"Wow, wow! Sorry, didn't want to scare you!" Mulder yelled, worried that he could have made her fall. "Thought you heard me coming."

"I must have been bewitched by the white," Scully quietly answered while climbing down the steps.

Once on the grass, she turned around and faced him. He was displaying a shy smile in apology waiting for Scully to somehow punish his audacious and sudden appearance. Nothing of the sort was in her mind as she had been soon distracted by his mere appearance. His appealing look. She was approvingly contemplating his messy hair, his dirty and sweaty face and forearms, and above all his sexy tight white T-shirt that was completely stained by black and grey spots.

"How was your cleaning work in the attic?" she asked him in an amused yet seduced tone.

"Obviously dirty," he replied, pointing some stains on his shirt.

In return he stared at her, perceiving her own blots of white paint on her hands, her face and her multicolored outfit.

"Wanting to deny your rainbow-friendly side and disguise in Snow Queen?" Mulder bantered.

"See, the white color being a combination of all the colors, I'm just reinforcing my taste."

"Indeed. But keep on wearing outwardly many colors. I like to admire all of them on you, adding to the sky blue of your eyes, the bright copper of your hair, the light pink of your skin..."

Mulder stepped forward to reach her and kiss her passionately, while avoiding to spoil her with his dirt.

"...and the burning red of your wonderful lips. I even miss these tiny red spots of blood you had when doing autopsies," he concluded when breaking the kiss.

Seeing that Scully became suddenly thoughtful, Mulder felt quickly worried.

"Something wrong?" he asked.

"Not really. I was thinking... About what you said, how I choose colors. When I'm wearing white, or would want to..."

For a few seconds she remained quiet.

"Had you ever wanted to enter solemnly a church wearing a gorgeous white wedding gown?" Mulder launched carefully, unsure of how this conversation could end.

"Surely when I was very young," Scully replied in a casual tone.

"Do you regret I didn't offer you that?"

She ponders his question for a few seconds.

"No, not at all. Don't worry about it. Really," she firmly replied. Then she added, "And you, any regrets, not having witnessed me in the virginal white?"

"Never. I always wanted you in all the colors that makes you unchaste and complicated, that makes you who you deeply are, in all your diversity. All the colors of the rainbow that you are wearing so well."

"That's so lovely and charming."

"Am I not your Prince Charming?"

As an answer Scully dropped down the brush she was still holding and get as close as she could to fully embrace Mulder, not at all taking care to mix all the dirt and stains covering both of us. They stood still for a while, hugging tightly and relishing the fortune they had to be happily together, right now.

Then, Mulder kissed the top of Scully's head and stared at their house.

"I wonder, Scully... Do we really want our house painted in white?" he asked.

"That's not the same thing," she replied.

"How that?"

"This is our beacon in the night. When we are surrounded by darkness its bright pure light is guiding and inviting us. Is welcoming us inside."

"Yeah, I agree. Moreover, it makes our house being a blank page. Waiting for us to write our own story, not on it, but inside. This white facade is the guardian of our book, of our life together. And its neutral color keeps away inquisitive people or gossipers while absorbing the memory of all our many colored secrets," Mulder concluded.