Time Is Running Out Part Six
By Katie Phillips
Disclaimer Info located in Part One
April 13th 7:30 PM Scully's Apartment
Scully picked up the remote control and began to aimlessly flip through channels. Nothing caught her fancy so she got up and wandered over to her bookcase thinking that perhaps she would read a little.
Nothing there interested her either and she began to walk around the room picking things up just to put them down again. She caught herself and stopped shaking her head when she realized that she had just rearranged all the pictures on her mantelpiece for the third time that evening.
She glanced at the clock on the mantle before heading into the kitchen to pour herself a glass of wine. Reluctantly she admitted to herself that she was hoping that Mulder would continue their long-lost habit of pizza and movies on Saturday night.
From everything her mother had told her about her visit to the cemetery with Mulder, Scully thought that Mulder was interested in taking up where they had left off so many months ago. That may have been true a few days ago, she told herself, before she had spent the majority of the week trying to avoid him.
Pulling the cork from the bottle she realized that she had to face the fact that she had given Mulder absolutely no reason to think that any interest he still had in her would be reciprocated.
"I am such an idiot." She said to herself as she poured the wine almost to the top of the glass. She picked up the glass, drained most of its content and filled it again.
The thought of a hot bath had just entered her mind when she heard a familiar tapping on her door. A combination of fear and happiness shot through her as she walked over to the door and placed her hand on the doorknob.
Only then did she look down and notice that she was wearing her oldest pair of sweatpants and one of Mulder's t-shirts. "Great." she said to herself as she opened up the door. "I am sure he will find me totally irresistible in this outfit."
She swung the door open to find Mulder standing there with a pizza in one hand and a copy of Caddy Shack in the other. She looked up and him and found him looking at her with a most interesting look on his face. It was a mixture of humor and what she thought was desire.
"Hey." She said stepping aside so he could enter.
"Scully, didn't anyone ever tell you that you should never drink alone." Mulder joked pointing a finger at her glass of wine.
"Then I guess I should be grateful that you stopped by even if you did bring along the worse movie ever made." Scully said smiling herself.
"Come on Scully, I know it has been at least a year and a half since you watched it and I figure it would be a suitable punishment for the way you have avoided me all week." Mulder teased as he cleared a spot on the coffee table for the pizza.
"I haven't been avoiding you." Scully began before she saw the look on Mulder face and smiled back at him. "Okay, maybe just a little. I guess I just don't know what to say to you." She walked over to the mantle and started moving the pictures around again.
Mulder came up behind her and stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. He turned her around and when he saw her staring at her shoes, lifted her chin with his finger. "You could start by telling me that you are glad I am back." Feeling the mood getting a bit too serious a bit too early in the evening he continued in a lighter tone. "But I will settle for you not beating the crap out of me."
Scully smiled at this. "Sorry about that."
"And?" Mulder said egging her on.
"And I am very happy you are back." She said much the way a student would recite back a lesson to her teacher.
"Now that wasn't so hard, was it?" Mulder said giving her a peck on the forehead. "The pizza is getting cold. Let's eat."
Mulder threw in the movie, poured himself a glass of wine and plopped down on the next to Scully. He watched her almost as much as the movie noticing not only how cute she looked in his t-shirt but how it took her what seemed like forever to relax. He wasn't sure if it was the wine or their old routine that finally got her relaxed enough to laugh at the antics of Bill Murray on the screen.
When the movie had finished he turned off the TV, refilled their wine glasses and sat back down this time much closer to Scully. He took a sip of wine watching her over the rim of the glass as he drank. She was getting nervous again but this time he thought it was due to thinking about what might happen instead of dwelling on what already had.
Mulder carefully placed his glass on the coffee table and reached over to Scully's shirt gently fingering the cuff of the sleeve. "Nice shirt Scully, where did you get it?"
Scully blushed and shrugged but did nothing when Mulder's fingers left her cuff and traveled down towards her hand. He picked it up and kissed her knuckles tenderly.
"I guess I should thank you for everything you did when, you know." He began feeling a bit foolish.
"No need to thank me." She responded quietly avoiding his eyes.
"Oh but there is. It isn't often that a person gets a chance to see how he will be remembered to future generations. Everything you did. . ." He couldn't finish again but kissed her hand again.
Feeling the mood getting a bit too dark, Mulder squeezed her hand until Scully looked up at him. "Can I ask you a kind of weird question Scully?"
Scully snorted. "If you think it's weird Mulder, I am almost too scared to hear it."
Mulder smiled. "I was just wondering what ever happened to all my stuff."
"Your stuff?"
"You know, clothes, books, papers."
"Oh that. They are still in your apartment." Scully said beginning to stare at her shoes again.
"In my apartment. I still have an apartment?" Mulder said his smile getting broader. "Why?"
"Well, you had just signed a two year lease and I didn't really see the need to break it so I. . ."
"You kept it. Scully, you kept my apartment. I guess that means you knew that somehow I would come back." Mulder said.
"What is says Mulder," Scully began sounding for the first time since his return like his former partner out to prove him wrong "that I was in complete and total denial that you were dead and that I couldn't bring myself to part with your belongings."
Mulder released Scully's hand and stood up and headed for his jacket.
"Where are you going Mulder?"
"To my apartment, where else?"
"Now?" Scully said trying to hide her disappointment at Mulder's eagerness to ditch her.
"Of course now. I haven't seen my things for a year and a half. I don't think I could wait until morning." He walked over to the door, opened it and turned to look at her. "Well don't just sit there, grab your coat."
"You want me to come with you?" Scully said still sitting.
Mulder closed the door and walked over to her and extended his hand to help her up. "Scully, why do you think I wouldn't want you to come with me?"
Scully stood up and shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe I thought you would rather share a moment like that with Alicia. You two went through so much together out in Idaho."
Mulder just stared at her. "Scully, I am only going to say this once and I want you to believe me, alright?" Scully barely nodded her agreement so he continued. "What happened between Alicia and me was purely a physical relationship based solely on the circumstances in which we found ourselves. There is no real bond between us. Hell, we had stopped sleeping together long before we left Idaho. She is nothing. You are everything."
Mulder kept staring at her until her eyes met his. "Good now get your jacket Scully, my little fish are dying to see their Daddy."
Mulder took Scully's copy of his apartment key and after taking a deep breath put it in the door and turned it. He opened the door, switched on the light and for the first time in 18 months felt like he was really home.
Scully stood back by the door next to the bags of groceries they had picked up on their way over content to watch Mulder as he slowly made his way around the room dragging a finger across his beloved objects.
He turned and smiled at her before coming to her and ushering her in. "Let me get these in the kitchen and then I will complete my tour." He said handing her a bag and grabbing two.
He walked into the kitchen and stopped when he saw how clean and shiny everything was. Not only had Scully obviously cleaned the place from top to bottom, but she had kept it clean.
Mulder opened the fridge and began putting the food inside. "Scully, it must have taken you days to get through all the goop and grime that was here."
Scully smiled a bit embarrassed at being caught and shrugged. "I had a lot of nervous energy. I thought I would put it to good use."
Mulder smiled again and took her hand. "I want to finish off my tour. May I escort you into my bedroom?" Mulder wiggled his eyebrows at her and pulled her into his room.
Mulder almost gasped out loud at what he saw. Never in all his years had his room been so organized. Looking around it gave him a glimpse of what life would be like living with Scully.
He liked it.
The only thing that looked a bit mussed was the bed. The comforter was bunched a bit in the middle and one of the pillows had been removed from its usual spot and placed on top. Mulder looked to Scully for an explanation only to find that she had escaped back out to the living room where she stood in front of the fish tank blindly throwing in food.
Mulder came up behind her and gently wrapped his arms around her. "What is it Scully?" he said resting his chin on her head.
"There were some nights I could barely stand it." Scully began speaking to his reflection on the fish tank. "Nights when I just couldn't sleep. I would come here then and sometimes even sleep here. It was a comfort to me to be surrounded by this." She waved her hand feebly at Mulder's things. "That's the real reason I never gave up your apartment."
The tears were streaming down her face then. Mulder spun her slowly around taking her head in his hands and brushing her tears away with his thumbs. "Tell me Scully, what about us together makes us so special that people go out of their way to tear us apart?"
Scully had no answer just put her arms around him and held him close.
Mulder finally pulled back kissing Scully on the head. "I am going to make us a cup of tea Scully. Why don't you pick out something for us to watch."
Scully was looking over Mulder's movie collection when she felt him standing behind her. "Scully, is it too much to hope that you kept all those movies that didn't belong to me?" She turned and slapped him. "Of course I kept them. I had no idea where to return them."
"Tell me Scully" Mulder said reaching down and tickling Scully as she bent down again "Did you ever watch those movies when you were here?"
"No!" Scully said turning around and smacking him again. "How did you ever survive so long without your entertainment Mulder?" She asked poking him in the ribs on every word. "Or did busty little Alicia fill the need for you?"
At this Mulder bent over and picked her up over his shoulder and unceremoniously dumped her on his sofa where he began to tickle her in earnest. "God I love to hear you laugh Scully." he said between tickles. He stopped suddenly his head above hers waiting for her to catch her breath. "You should do it more often."
He leaned lower then and was just about to touch her lips when the tea kettle began to shriek.
"Damn" he said as he attempted to stand up and promptly lost his balance landing with a thud on the floor. This got Scully giggling again.
Mulder picked himself up with as much dignity as he could muster and went into the kitchen returning several minutes later with two mugs of tea. Scully had pulled herself together, more or less and was sitting up waiting for him.
Mulder placed the mugs on the coffee table and settled himself next to Scully putting his head back against the back of the sofa and looked at her sideways. "Tell me Scully, how did Walter Skinner manage to get you into his bed in only a few months when I haven't been able to manage it in all these years?"
Scully leaned back and looked over at him and smiled at him. "Don't put too much pressure on yourself Mulder. You could start by just making out with me you know."
Mulder leaned towards her. "Guess we gotta start somewhere."
April 14th 8:45 AM Ambassador Hotel Coffee Shop
Alicia took her usual seat at the coffee shop counter smiling to the waitress who remained her only real acquaintance outside of Scully and Skinner in Washington. She tried to feel happy for Mulder now that he had been reunited with Scully but she had to admit that she was just a little bit jealous and a little bit lonely.
She wasn't really looking forward to yet another day down at the lab. She could have very easily taken the day off, it was Sunday after all, but since she had absolutely nothing else to do she figured she would head down to the lab and try to get a jump on the testing they had scheduled for the following week.
Alicia was quite surprised when a good looking man with dark hair and eyes sat down next to her at the counter. The coffee shop was practically deserted but the man had chosen to sit next to her. Alicia sat up a bit straighter glad that she wore one of her lower cut sweaters.
The man beside her ordered a cup of coffee and when it arrived had asked her for the creamer that sat in front of her cup. Their eyes had met then and she found herself drawn to them. They were dark and held not only a hint of mystery but of danger as well.
"Thanks." The man had said putting a large dollop of cream in his coffee. "Any idea what's good here?"
Alicia smiled sweetly at him. "Practically everything but I am especially fond of their pancakes."
"Then pancakes it shall be." The man replied matching her smile with one of his own.
They spent the next hour chatting about this and that over their pancakes and coffee. Alicia was enjoying his company so much that she didn't give her work a second thought when he had asked her to lunch that afternoon. She figured they could swing by the lab and pick up her laptop while they were out and she could make up the work later.
She had agreed without hesitation to meeting him in the hotel lobby promptly at noon. It was only when the man was halfway out the door that she called out to him. "You know you never did tell me your name."
"It's Alex."
+++++++++++++++++++++= End of Part Six - Alicia and Alex, what do you think about that?
Disclaimer Info located in Part One
April 13th 7:30 PM Scully's Apartment
Scully picked up the remote control and began to aimlessly flip through channels. Nothing caught her fancy so she got up and wandered over to her bookcase thinking that perhaps she would read a little.
Nothing there interested her either and she began to walk around the room picking things up just to put them down again. She caught herself and stopped shaking her head when she realized that she had just rearranged all the pictures on her mantelpiece for the third time that evening.
She glanced at the clock on the mantle before heading into the kitchen to pour herself a glass of wine. Reluctantly she admitted to herself that she was hoping that Mulder would continue their long-lost habit of pizza and movies on Saturday night.
From everything her mother had told her about her visit to the cemetery with Mulder, Scully thought that Mulder was interested in taking up where they had left off so many months ago. That may have been true a few days ago, she told herself, before she had spent the majority of the week trying to avoid him.
Pulling the cork from the bottle she realized that she had to face the fact that she had given Mulder absolutely no reason to think that any interest he still had in her would be reciprocated.
"I am such an idiot." She said to herself as she poured the wine almost to the top of the glass. She picked up the glass, drained most of its content and filled it again.
The thought of a hot bath had just entered her mind when she heard a familiar tapping on her door. A combination of fear and happiness shot through her as she walked over to the door and placed her hand on the doorknob.
Only then did she look down and notice that she was wearing her oldest pair of sweatpants and one of Mulder's t-shirts. "Great." she said to herself as she opened up the door. "I am sure he will find me totally irresistible in this outfit."
She swung the door open to find Mulder standing there with a pizza in one hand and a copy of Caddy Shack in the other. She looked up and him and found him looking at her with a most interesting look on his face. It was a mixture of humor and what she thought was desire.
"Hey." She said stepping aside so he could enter.
"Scully, didn't anyone ever tell you that you should never drink alone." Mulder joked pointing a finger at her glass of wine.
"Then I guess I should be grateful that you stopped by even if you did bring along the worse movie ever made." Scully said smiling herself.
"Come on Scully, I know it has been at least a year and a half since you watched it and I figure it would be a suitable punishment for the way you have avoided me all week." Mulder teased as he cleared a spot on the coffee table for the pizza.
"I haven't been avoiding you." Scully began before she saw the look on Mulder face and smiled back at him. "Okay, maybe just a little. I guess I just don't know what to say to you." She walked over to the mantle and started moving the pictures around again.
Mulder came up behind her and stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. He turned her around and when he saw her staring at her shoes, lifted her chin with his finger. "You could start by telling me that you are glad I am back." Feeling the mood getting a bit too serious a bit too early in the evening he continued in a lighter tone. "But I will settle for you not beating the crap out of me."
Scully smiled at this. "Sorry about that."
"And?" Mulder said egging her on.
"And I am very happy you are back." She said much the way a student would recite back a lesson to her teacher.
"Now that wasn't so hard, was it?" Mulder said giving her a peck on the forehead. "The pizza is getting cold. Let's eat."
Mulder threw in the movie, poured himself a glass of wine and plopped down on the next to Scully. He watched her almost as much as the movie noticing not only how cute she looked in his t-shirt but how it took her what seemed like forever to relax. He wasn't sure if it was the wine or their old routine that finally got her relaxed enough to laugh at the antics of Bill Murray on the screen.
When the movie had finished he turned off the TV, refilled their wine glasses and sat back down this time much closer to Scully. He took a sip of wine watching her over the rim of the glass as he drank. She was getting nervous again but this time he thought it was due to thinking about what might happen instead of dwelling on what already had.
Mulder carefully placed his glass on the coffee table and reached over to Scully's shirt gently fingering the cuff of the sleeve. "Nice shirt Scully, where did you get it?"
Scully blushed and shrugged but did nothing when Mulder's fingers left her cuff and traveled down towards her hand. He picked it up and kissed her knuckles tenderly.
"I guess I should thank you for everything you did when, you know." He began feeling a bit foolish.
"No need to thank me." She responded quietly avoiding his eyes.
"Oh but there is. It isn't often that a person gets a chance to see how he will be remembered to future generations. Everything you did. . ." He couldn't finish again but kissed her hand again.
Feeling the mood getting a bit too dark, Mulder squeezed her hand until Scully looked up at him. "Can I ask you a kind of weird question Scully?"
Scully snorted. "If you think it's weird Mulder, I am almost too scared to hear it."
Mulder smiled. "I was just wondering what ever happened to all my stuff."
"Your stuff?"
"You know, clothes, books, papers."
"Oh that. They are still in your apartment." Scully said beginning to stare at her shoes again.
"In my apartment. I still have an apartment?" Mulder said his smile getting broader. "Why?"
"Well, you had just signed a two year lease and I didn't really see the need to break it so I. . ."
"You kept it. Scully, you kept my apartment. I guess that means you knew that somehow I would come back." Mulder said.
"What is says Mulder," Scully began sounding for the first time since his return like his former partner out to prove him wrong "that I was in complete and total denial that you were dead and that I couldn't bring myself to part with your belongings."
Mulder released Scully's hand and stood up and headed for his jacket.
"Where are you going Mulder?"
"To my apartment, where else?"
"Now?" Scully said trying to hide her disappointment at Mulder's eagerness to ditch her.
"Of course now. I haven't seen my things for a year and a half. I don't think I could wait until morning." He walked over to the door, opened it and turned to look at her. "Well don't just sit there, grab your coat."
"You want me to come with you?" Scully said still sitting.
Mulder closed the door and walked over to her and extended his hand to help her up. "Scully, why do you think I wouldn't want you to come with me?"
Scully stood up and shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe I thought you would rather share a moment like that with Alicia. You two went through so much together out in Idaho."
Mulder just stared at her. "Scully, I am only going to say this once and I want you to believe me, alright?" Scully barely nodded her agreement so he continued. "What happened between Alicia and me was purely a physical relationship based solely on the circumstances in which we found ourselves. There is no real bond between us. Hell, we had stopped sleeping together long before we left Idaho. She is nothing. You are everything."
Mulder kept staring at her until her eyes met his. "Good now get your jacket Scully, my little fish are dying to see their Daddy."
Mulder took Scully's copy of his apartment key and after taking a deep breath put it in the door and turned it. He opened the door, switched on the light and for the first time in 18 months felt like he was really home.
Scully stood back by the door next to the bags of groceries they had picked up on their way over content to watch Mulder as he slowly made his way around the room dragging a finger across his beloved objects.
He turned and smiled at her before coming to her and ushering her in. "Let me get these in the kitchen and then I will complete my tour." He said handing her a bag and grabbing two.
He walked into the kitchen and stopped when he saw how clean and shiny everything was. Not only had Scully obviously cleaned the place from top to bottom, but she had kept it clean.
Mulder opened the fridge and began putting the food inside. "Scully, it must have taken you days to get through all the goop and grime that was here."
Scully smiled a bit embarrassed at being caught and shrugged. "I had a lot of nervous energy. I thought I would put it to good use."
Mulder smiled again and took her hand. "I want to finish off my tour. May I escort you into my bedroom?" Mulder wiggled his eyebrows at her and pulled her into his room.
Mulder almost gasped out loud at what he saw. Never in all his years had his room been so organized. Looking around it gave him a glimpse of what life would be like living with Scully.
He liked it.
The only thing that looked a bit mussed was the bed. The comforter was bunched a bit in the middle and one of the pillows had been removed from its usual spot and placed on top. Mulder looked to Scully for an explanation only to find that she had escaped back out to the living room where she stood in front of the fish tank blindly throwing in food.
Mulder came up behind her and gently wrapped his arms around her. "What is it Scully?" he said resting his chin on her head.
"There were some nights I could barely stand it." Scully began speaking to his reflection on the fish tank. "Nights when I just couldn't sleep. I would come here then and sometimes even sleep here. It was a comfort to me to be surrounded by this." She waved her hand feebly at Mulder's things. "That's the real reason I never gave up your apartment."
The tears were streaming down her face then. Mulder spun her slowly around taking her head in his hands and brushing her tears away with his thumbs. "Tell me Scully, what about us together makes us so special that people go out of their way to tear us apart?"
Scully had no answer just put her arms around him and held him close.
Mulder finally pulled back kissing Scully on the head. "I am going to make us a cup of tea Scully. Why don't you pick out something for us to watch."
Scully was looking over Mulder's movie collection when she felt him standing behind her. "Scully, is it too much to hope that you kept all those movies that didn't belong to me?" She turned and slapped him. "Of course I kept them. I had no idea where to return them."
"Tell me Scully" Mulder said reaching down and tickling Scully as she bent down again "Did you ever watch those movies when you were here?"
"No!" Scully said turning around and smacking him again. "How did you ever survive so long without your entertainment Mulder?" She asked poking him in the ribs on every word. "Or did busty little Alicia fill the need for you?"
At this Mulder bent over and picked her up over his shoulder and unceremoniously dumped her on his sofa where he began to tickle her in earnest. "God I love to hear you laugh Scully." he said between tickles. He stopped suddenly his head above hers waiting for her to catch her breath. "You should do it more often."
He leaned lower then and was just about to touch her lips when the tea kettle began to shriek.
"Damn" he said as he attempted to stand up and promptly lost his balance landing with a thud on the floor. This got Scully giggling again.
Mulder picked himself up with as much dignity as he could muster and went into the kitchen returning several minutes later with two mugs of tea. Scully had pulled herself together, more or less and was sitting up waiting for him.
Mulder placed the mugs on the coffee table and settled himself next to Scully putting his head back against the back of the sofa and looked at her sideways. "Tell me Scully, how did Walter Skinner manage to get you into his bed in only a few months when I haven't been able to manage it in all these years?"
Scully leaned back and looked over at him and smiled at him. "Don't put too much pressure on yourself Mulder. You could start by just making out with me you know."
Mulder leaned towards her. "Guess we gotta start somewhere."
April 14th 8:45 AM Ambassador Hotel Coffee Shop
Alicia took her usual seat at the coffee shop counter smiling to the waitress who remained her only real acquaintance outside of Scully and Skinner in Washington. She tried to feel happy for Mulder now that he had been reunited with Scully but she had to admit that she was just a little bit jealous and a little bit lonely.
She wasn't really looking forward to yet another day down at the lab. She could have very easily taken the day off, it was Sunday after all, but since she had absolutely nothing else to do she figured she would head down to the lab and try to get a jump on the testing they had scheduled for the following week.
Alicia was quite surprised when a good looking man with dark hair and eyes sat down next to her at the counter. The coffee shop was practically deserted but the man had chosen to sit next to her. Alicia sat up a bit straighter glad that she wore one of her lower cut sweaters.
The man beside her ordered a cup of coffee and when it arrived had asked her for the creamer that sat in front of her cup. Their eyes had met then and she found herself drawn to them. They were dark and held not only a hint of mystery but of danger as well.
"Thanks." The man had said putting a large dollop of cream in his coffee. "Any idea what's good here?"
Alicia smiled sweetly at him. "Practically everything but I am especially fond of their pancakes."
"Then pancakes it shall be." The man replied matching her smile with one of his own.
They spent the next hour chatting about this and that over their pancakes and coffee. Alicia was enjoying his company so much that she didn't give her work a second thought when he had asked her to lunch that afternoon. She figured they could swing by the lab and pick up her laptop while they were out and she could make up the work later.
She had agreed without hesitation to meeting him in the hotel lobby promptly at noon. It was only when the man was halfway out the door that she called out to him. "You know you never did tell me your name."
"It's Alex."
+++++++++++++++++++++= End of Part Six - Alicia and Alex, what do you think about that?