When the Night Falls On You
By "Missy42"
Author's Notes: I am not a shipper. I acknowledge that Mulder and Scully are totally in love. However, never wanted to see them "get together." I'm one of the older viewers. I started watching when the "classic" episodes were brand new. It was a time when mutants ran rampant among us, and Scully said "There's got to be a scientific explanation" in every episode, and actually came up with one. The show still had that cult feeling, and Mulder and Scully were so totally engrossed in their work that no one wanted a relationship to start. They were more like brother and sister than anything else. However, in the light of more recent occurrences between the two, I cannot deny the heightened sexual tension. It's always been there, but it's been amplified ever since the movie. This piece is spawned by that. In particular, I draw upon the fact that in the second to last episode of season 7, an episode entitled "Je Souhaite," the episode ends in Mulder's apartment with the pair just hanging out (truly a happening for them) watching a movie and sipping some beers. In the very next episode, Scully announces that she's pregnant. Coincidence? So, late at night, when I can't get to sleep, but I'm not quite awake, my imagination tends to run rampant, and I imagine what might have gone on between everyone's favorite FBI agents after the cameras stopped rolling. I'm sure someone else has already written something on the subject, but this is my version.
Disclaimer: The characters in this piece are not mine. Mulder and Scully belong to Chris Carter, Fox, ten-thirteen, etc. I am not claiming to have invented such a wonderful couple with such a great relationship, and I'm not making any money off it, nor do I have any (I's is jus' a po' college studen' tryin' ta git me an edumacation) so suing me will accomplish nothing. Also, the songs "played" in it are not mine, nor did I invent the dances mentioned in here, so don't even bother trying to get me for those, either – it's not worth it, trust me.
References/Spoilers: Tooms, The Host, Ascension, Aubrey, Dom Kalm, The Blessing Way, Paper Clip, Memento Mori, Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose, Quagmire, Paper Hearts, Small Potatoes, Redux II, Kill Switch, The X-Files Fight the Future, Dreamland, Dreamland II, Tithonus, One Son, The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati, Closure, Je Souhaite, Requirum, Within
When The Night Falls On You
Chapter One: Stirs
She had fallen asleep a half-hour into the movie, and started drooling on his shoulder after about fifteen minutes after that. A large wet spot eventually accumulated on his shirt. Mulder suspected she had done that on purpose. *Maybe it's just her way of getting back at me for picking a movie she didn't like.*[1] He almost laughed out loud at the thought. He really didn't mind the drooling.[2] Actually, he found it rather endearing. Here was his partner, a woman who took such great care of herself, who had such impeccable hygiene, who was known for being the one of the most clean-cut agents in the FBI, and she drooled in her sleep. So, she was human after all. Immortal (supposedly), but human.[3]
He had turned the movie off shortly after she started drooling. He didn't really care about the movie; he had seen it before. It was really was just a smokescreen in an attempt to spend some time with her – some real time with her – without having to worry about solving a case or catching a suspect or getting a witness to testify, or anything like that. Tonight, there were no X-File between them, no aliens, no mutants, no government conspiracies to put them at odds. It was just the two of them. Popcorn and a movie was the best cover he could think of to get her over, and she still questioned his motives for it. He didn't blame her, though. The last time her partner wanted to just hang out with her for no apparent reason, it turned out to be a sleazy shape-shifting janitor trying to "get some."[4] And she did have a point about the movie he had chosen. It probably wasn't the best choice in entertainment if he really wanted her to get into it, but then, if he had chosen something she had liked, it would look even more suspicious.
He had turned the TV off with the remote, and he but hadn't moved from the couch. He didn't want to disturb her slumber, in spite of the fact that it would probably mean that the drooling would stop. She just looked so peaceful, so comfortable there, leaning up against his shoulder that he didn't have the heart to wake her. Besides, he was content to just watch her chest rise and fall as she breathed in and out...in...and out...in...and out. As he focused his attention on her, he thought he saw her shiver ever so slightly. He reached over the back of the couch and pulled down the blanket Nana Mulder had crocheted for him as a house-warming gift when he moved into his first apartment. Mulder then proceeded to wrap the worn old thing around the redhead's sleeping body. Almost immediately, he thought that she looked more comfortable, and he returned to his original task of just watching her sleep.
After a few minutes, his thoughts began to stray. He thought about what the doctor's had said.[5] It scared him. He remembered when Scully had first told him when she had been in a rather similar situation.[6] He had been scared, then, too, but for different reasons. He had been afraid of losing her – so afraid of losing her – but he had never stopped to think that the tables might someday be turned. That he would be the one having to face his own mortality now. She had told him once that death was nothing to fear,[7] and even though he had no reason to doubt her on the subject, he was still scared. But then, what did she know about it, really? She had always bounced back from whatever it was that threatened to terminate her. He had, too, so far, but the tests he had endured were not quite so demanding, not quite so extreme, as the ones she had been put through. Now they were, and he knew he didn't know if he too possessed the strength she had to pull through this. Besides, she –
She stirred. Her eyes fluttered. *She's waking up,* he thought.
Her eyes opened. She had a vacant, sleepy look on her face as she took in the familiar surroundings. The first thing she noticed was the warm blanket that had been carefully laid on her body. Next, she registered the arms wrapped around her. They were warm, strong, muscular, gentle, caring... they were...Mulder's?
Scully sat up with a start, letting the blanket fall from her shoulders. "What time is it?" she demanded.
Mulder looked at his watch.
"Relax. It's nine-thirty."
"The movie's over?"
It took Mulder a second to think of the appropriate response. He entertained the idea of saying "No, I just turned it off when you fell asleep so that when you woke up, you could finish watching it without missing any of the story." But that would be cruel.
"Ah...yeah. You missed out on a great movie, Scully."
Scully gave him a skeptical look, and he knew she was calculating the time the movie started, the time it would take to finish it, and the hour he had just reported. It didn't add up, and he could see the wheels in her head turning. But in a flash, the look was gone, replaced by a huge yawn as she gave her arms a little stretch.
"I had probably better go home," Scully said as she stood up.
"Why?" He did his best to hide the desperation in his voice. He didn't want to be left alone tonight.
"It's getting late Mulder."
"It's a Friday night, Scully. You gotta be somewhere tomorrow morning?"
"No, but..."
"Or are you running off to be in the arms of another man?" he asked sarcastically.
She raised an eyebrow as she gave him a look before retorted with "No. That was last night."
"So then what's the rush?"
"Well...I came over to see a movie, and since it's over, I just thought it would be the appropriate thing to do, unless you have something else planned for tonight."
"It just so happens, I do." He really didn't, but if it kept her from leaving, he could think of something. She turned to face him with another skeptical look before inquiring "What is it?"
He needed to buy himself some time to think. "Well, if you really don't want to stay, I won't put a gun to your head. In fact, I'm so offended that you would want to take off so soon, that I'm not sure I want you to stay anymore."
"Alright, I'm sorry. What is it?"
"Well...since you apologized so nice-like..." It was just the right amount of time he needed to think of something. "Ah...would you help me move the coffee table?"
Once the table was against the wall next to the TV, he turned to his computer and started it up and inserted an unlabeled CD into the CD-ROM drive. She almost thought he was going to start them working on another case as he moved the mouse around to open up whatever it was on the disc, but then she wasn't sure why he'd need to move the table for that. Then, emitting from the little speakers next to the computer came music. Stray Cat's "Rock This Town," to be exact. Scully smiled as he turned back to her, and he could have sworn he saw her blush as he extended his hand to her.
"May I have this dance?" Scully hesitated, not because she didn't want to, but because she couldn't believe he was actually asking her to. She recovered from her little shock very quickly, placed her hand in his, and did a little twirl as he pulled her toward him.
To be continued…
[1] He rented "Caddy Shack" at the end of "Je Soulhaite," a movie Scully seemed less than thrilled about. He said next time, they could watch "Steel Magnolias" to make up for it.
[2] I can't remember which episode it was where Mulder made a comment about Scully's drooling, and I've had conflicting reports on the subject. I've been informed by PepperAnne that it took place in "Pusher," while one Lizz tells me that it was in "Squeeze." I have "Squeeze on tape, but it's in storage up at school, so I'll just have to rent the episodes. Meantime, if anyone wants to confirm/deny these reports, or tell me a totally new one, fell free; I love hearing from you guys, for any reason.
[3] In "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose," Clyde, who can see how people die before it happens, states that Scully won't die. In a kind of follow-up episode, "Tithonus," it seems that Scully does indeed acquire immortality.
[4] Morris Fletcher, in Mulder's body, also tried to get it on with Scully in Dreamland II. While Scully did use the occasion as something of a set-up for Fletcher to confess that he wasn't Mulder, at the end of that story line, none of them would remember the event. So in their minds, the incident with Eddie Van Blundht is the only time someone used Mulder's body to get closer to Scully.
[5] I'm alluding to the fact that in the episode "Within," we discover that Mulder knew he was dying from "abnormal brain activity" and had been seeing doctors about it for a year before Scully ever found out.
[6] I'm referring, of course, to Scully's battle with cancer, which she told him about in "Memento Mori."
[7] She informed him of this in "Dom Kalm."