A/N: this was originally posted on AO3 in December 2015, when I was still in school myself, and can still be found there. I'm posting it here, I guess for posterity. Think of it as a time capsule. I've corrected a few of the grammar and spelling mistakes, but other than that, it's exactly the same fic.

"So, Fox, why aren't you at home with your parents celebrating Christmas with them?" Margaret questioned Mulder, in a manner that reminded him greatly of the old police movies they always showed on TV this time of year. He sat rather awkwardly across from her husband, attempting to smile in an effort to defuse the situation

"Mulder!" Melissa pied up, blushing as they eyes of her parents and siblings all shifted in her direction "Dana told me to call him Mulder." She added, averting her eyes to the stacked presents, laid neatly under the tree.

"Thanks Missy." He hissed, the smile returning to her face "And um, well Jews don't really celebrate Christmas, Mrs Scully." He explained, his own cheeks flushing redder than Melissa's – he heard Charlie supress and snort, evidently not wanting to be caught laughing by his father in a situation as 'serious' as this one.

Fox Mulder prided himself on his ability to avoid trouble, at this point he has become a pro – an ability which had unfortunately failed him on this occasion. He had snuck into Scully's bedroom and left without leaving so much of a trace dozens of times before; in fact in some way he was actually surprised that it had taken her parents nearly a whole year to even suspect what their daughter was doing on the nights that she went up to bed early – his parents certainly knew, not that this in any way meant that they intervened, in fact he was fairly certain that his father was a little proud that his son was meeting a girl and not spending his evenings attending the speculative paranormal meetings of the 'weird newspaper club boys' as Mulder had been prone to in the month prior to meeting Scully.

He had known Scully since freshman year, though only on a name and face basis – they went to a big school. Moderately to mildly popular gorgeous little Catholic red heads were certainly in a different league to Spooky Mulder. There had never been any cause for them to speak or even look at one another until the summer commencing sophomore year, on a mid-August evening. Mulder had been involved in a decidedly vicious row with his father and had stormed out of the front door and down the road at approximately 11:45pm – having no money, not wanting to go to his mother's house at risk of sparking another argument, no place to stay aside from maybe Byers's house, and not a particularly strong desire to go back home any time soon, he had wandered aimlessly in the general direction of his school until he had found her bundled up in a black trench coat, glasses perched on the tip of her nose and a lit cigarette between her teeth, at the bus stop. Perching himself on the opposite end of the bench, he had said, significantly more morbidly than he had intended "Those will give you cancer."

She glared at him before stubbing out the only half burnt down cigarette on the underside of the bench – evidently, she wasn't a regular smoker "I won't get cancer." She replied coldly, throwing the stubbed out stick down on the ground at her feet "You go to my school." She added – it was a statement, not a question.

He nodded slowly, there really was no point in answering a statement "What was your name again?" he already knew her name, he asked simply as a formality.

"Scully. Dana Scully. I know you, you're Fox Mulder."

He was momentarily surprised that she knew who he was, though then again, he was known by reputation by most people in his school for his alleged strangeness "Fox? You don't think that I'm Spooky, Scully Dana Scully?"

"No I do not." She said in a matter-of-fact manner, her eye line straying to the stubbed out cigarette on the ground.

He felt the corners of his mouth pull in a tiny smile "Well that's nice of you." He offered by way of an apology.

"No it isn't, it's decent of me." She replied, smiling herself – God he felt bad about that cheap shot about the cigarette and the cancer now.

He hadn't seen her again until school had commenced again, but he had thought a hell of a lot about her, looking out for her whenever he was out in public. Once school began again though, it had been a different story altogether, he'd had no difficulty catching her eye around school, smiling at her in the hallway or waving at her in the cafeteria, she had waved and smiled right back at him, she hadn't been afraid about how it might affect the opinions of those she normally spent her days with, he had liked that about her. They met during lunch hour in the library, reading battered books side by side, him with his speculative science, her with her medical textbooks – she told him about how she wanted to be a doctor, and he exchanged stories of alien abductions he had read about, she had even been willing to listen to him, which had been a nice change from the typical eye rolls he usually received. He had kissed her on Halloween, under the bleachers, sitting cross legged face to face on laid out jackets, their shared headphones blasting Dead Kennedys in her left ear and his right – he didn't even like Dead Kennedys, he listened to them because she liked them; her cheeks had been sick with the cold, her glasses pressed right up into the bridge of her nose, her tiny fingers laced through the fine hairs that graced the nape of his neck. Sitting there with her lips on his, he had felt as if he had been in love with her already.

She had grinned when he had finally pulled away, their lips swollen and pink, he had taken this to mean that he could repeat this action and took almost every opportunity to do so that he possibly could. He heard their peers whisper under their breath as they walked through the school corridors together, their fingers laced together. It hadn't bothered him as such, what had bothered him was that it might potentially bother her; he learnt quickly that he should have thought better of her, as she ignored their whispering completely. With a pretty face which reminded him of Emmylou Harris and a cynical attitude that rivalled that of Friedrich Nietzsche, he quickly grew accustom to her ability to never fail to both surprise and impress him without even needing to try that hard. In fact, it had been her who had found her way into his bedroom at 3am on a Friday morning. If he hadn't been so tired, he might have marvelled at how she had managed to break her way into his house, with no key of her own and his father asleep in his own bed, unable to let her in. He simply didn't question it when she climbed into the single bed beside him, nuzzling her face into the crook of his neck, he had kissed the crown of her head as he usually did and fallen asleep almost straight away. Waking up the following morning to find a sleeping Scully in his arms had been quite the surprised – not that he had been complaining of course. Prodding her gently in the ribs he asked "Scully, what are you doing here?"

"Shut up Mulder." She mumbled, stirring a little before snuggling back down into his shoulder. He hadn't questioned her further.

Following this incident, sneaking into one another's bedrooms after dark had become a regular thing. It was a miracle that such a small person could take up so much room in one bed with just her limbs alone, he had quickly learnt to make himself as small as possible. Sneaking out the next morning to avoid suspicion had never been much of a difficulty either – at least in the past. He got to know her this way, he learnt the rhythm of her breathing, occasionally broken by a heavy intake of breath, how she can't sleep with socks because she overheats and the way the curves of her face aren't nearly as delicate as they might appear. Mulder had never been with another person in any way remotely similar to how he was with her, and without ever doing little more than kissing her. He had done little more than kiss another person anyway, his whole life, though the knowledge he had acquired of human sexuality from internet pornography might suggest otherwise.

One night he had awoken to find the space at his side usually occupied by Scully empty. A flash of panic had shot through him as he sat bolt upright, spotting her perched at the foot of his bed, her knees tucked up under her chin, his little green men t-shirt hanging limply from her shoulders, the alabaster of her skin reflecting the yellow tinge of the streetlight just down from his bedroom window. A thought of how long she had been sitting there momentarily crossed his mind before he saw her head twitch to the side to throw him a smile. Pulling himself up off his back he crawled up to lean his head on her shoulder, snaking an arm around her and pressing an innocent kiss to her jaw "You alright Scully?"

She never did answer him. Instead twisting her whole torso around to kiss him, lacing her fingers through his hair. Running the tip of his thumb across her cheekbone, he pulled her atop himself, the entire weight of her body pressing down on his own. Mulder felt what he would have described as liquid heat begin to expand from the very centre of his chest, filling up his whole body from the inside out, flowing right to the very tips of his fingers as he pulled her tighter to him, her red hair falling in cascades over his face. Hoisting her legs up around his hips as the tip of her tongue traced his bottom lip, they sank into the mattress together.

He had awoken the next morning curled up alone in bed, his clothes strewn haphazardly on his floor. Panicking for the better part of thirty second, he attempted to gather up his t-shirt and pyjama shorts from the floor, before finding the post-it note that she had left for him in blue biro pen, written like a formal letter of all things:

Mulder – it read
I'm sorry that I had to leave early, I'll see you later
Thank you
Love Scully

Letting out a sigh of relief, he settled back down onto his bed, pulling his t-shirt back over his head, the shirt which still retained her scent, he was unable to wipe the stupid smile from his face.

Finding himself in the position of being caught in nothing but boxer shorts in bed by Scully's brother on Christmas morning had not been something that he had been planning on, in fact it had been a scenario which he had been trying to avoid at all costs. Being woken to a shriek of "What the fuck are you doing here?" from Bill Jr had never been a sign that something positive was about to happen.

Despite his protests, Scully had immediately taken it upon herself to accept al blame for the incident, pulling their clothes back on before the room could be filled with any other family members; hoisting his pants up just as Scully's parents entered the room, unable to control a fit of giggles, Melissa and Charlie both crying with laughter themselves, standing in socks and dressing gowns in the doorway, he even caught a glimpse of the corners of Scully's mouth twitch.

If it hadn't been Christmas, a time of forgiveness and good will to all men, or whatever Christmas meant, Mulder was fairly certain that Scully's parents would have thrown him straight out of the house and never spoken a word to him again – Bill Jr already hated him simply for spending time with his little sister despite the fact that she was an adult, so he was hardly losing anything resembling a budding friendship there, and he was fairly certain that Melissa and Charlie liked him even more now.

Bill Scully's face was stoic and blank for practically the whole morning, Mulder figured that it would be the least he could do to avoid making eye contact with him, while Margaret questioned him as kindly as she could manage.

Mulder had never celebrated Christmas before, not properly anyway. He remembered as a kid his parents had bought him and his sister Samantha little presents to present them with on the 25th December that were definitely late Hanukah gifts and definitely not Christmas gifts – they just hadn't wanted them to feel left out from the other kids their age who received mountains of Christmas presents – he had understood, though the quantity of gifts had depleted over the years until now at eighteen years old, he would be lucky if he received a pain of snowman socks. He didn't mind so much. This considered, he couldn't quite contain his surprise when Scully presented him with his own gift, wrapped in red and gold paper – he had leant over to kiss her, ignoring the glare he received from Bill Jr. Christmas dinner was also something he had yet to experience, his Christmas dinners typically consisting of takeout pizza. The Scully's – rather kindly – had pulled up another chair for him next to Scully; he was greatly impressed with their ability to dance around the subject of the occurrence that morning entirely.

One of his better Christmases, though that wasn't saying much considering his history with Christmas.

"Well, that was a crisis I think we dealt with very well." Mused Scully, he head lolling gently on his shoulder,

"Oh yes," he agreed, grinning "We are quite the secret agents."

"Mulder?"

"Yeah?"

"Shut up."