"Wow. This is incredible. I've never seen anything like it." Scully was staring around the club in awe once they'd made it inside past the bouncers. "Have you been here before?"

"No," Stella replied. "A friend recommended it to me ages ago if I was ever back in Edinburgh."

They were inside a large stone chamber with an arched roof, one of a series of similar chambers that had been built beneath the arches of the South Bridge in the late 1700s. But, rather than housing merchant goods, illegal whiskey distilleries, or stolen corpses waiting to be sold to the Edinburgh Medical College, this one was now a trendy night time locale, with live music and a decent crowd of people dancing or milling about around the long bar area that took up most of one side. Through another archway, there was a similar chamber filled with booths and tables.

"Shall we get a drink?" Stella motioned towards the bar. "Or would you rather work up a thirst first?"

"Drinks first," Scully said decisively. She'd only had two glasses of wine with dinner and she didn't feel nearly loose enough to dance yet.

Stella took her hand as they wove their way through the crowd and didn't release it, even when they'd reached the edge of the bar. "What would you like?" she asked Scully. "Your usual gin and tonic?"

It made Scully feel muddled and happy that Stella already knew her well enough to know this about her. She didn't want the usual tonight though. Tonight was about not being trapped by past choices, not being content with the patterns she had used to close herself off. "I think I'll have a scotch," she said without allowing herself to overanalyze her decision. "When in Scotland, right?"

Stella nodded in perfect understanding and gestured to the bartender.

A few minutes later, they had found a free booth in the other chamber where they were further from the band and it was easier to speak without needing to yell. She was a little surprised when Stella slid in next to her rather than across from her, but it would be easier for them to hear each other this way and the warm press of Stella's leg against her own was pleasant. It felt natural to be close. Scully took a small sip of her whiskey, enjoying the burn that licked down her throat and warmed her stomach pleasantly.

"So," Stella said, relaxing against the back of the booth, "tell me something I don't already know about you."

Scully laughed. "Like what?"

"Anything. But nothing too mundane. Pick something obscure."

"Hmmm… Okay." Scully tried to think of something interesting, but immediately rejected the initial things that came to mind. The first — sneaking out of the house when she was thirteen to smoke her mother's cigarettes — now also carried the added alcohol-tinged memories of Ed Jerse in Philadelphia, and she didn't need any more reminders or echoes of that particular evening.

Her second thought was just… lame. Stella would have no interest in the fact that Bill had convinced her to let him shave off her eyebrows when she was five, resulting in a kindergarten school picture that had stayed on the fridge until she had finally torn it to shreds with embarrassment when she was entering those sensitive pre-teen years.

Then, there were all the weird things she'd seen and been through as part of the X-Files, but most of those stories were too bizarre to even be believed, and they weren't really about her. She didn't want to put a damper on the mood of the evening by talking about all the other fun highlights of her life either, and there were so many to choose from! Would Stella like to hear about the numerous times she'd been abducted, her nearly dying from cancer, or her infertility?

"I honestly don't know what to say," Scully said after what was probably a long and awkward pause while she toyed with the rim of her glass.

Stella took a sip of scotch and tilted her head. "I'll go first then, shall I? I dislike any combination of fruit and chocolate together. Now, you. One drink, one random fact."

Scully took a sip, still trying to come up with something that she thought Stella might want to know.

"Stop thinking. There is no wrong answer. I'm not going to think less of you."

"I wrecked my parents' car right after I got my driver's license by backing into a mailbox."

"Good." Stella's posture was loose but there was a glint of determination in her eyes that reminded Scully of Mulder when he was cutting his teeth on a new case. Stella took a drink of scotch and set her glass down on the table. "There was a boy who used to tease me when I was in primary school, so I dared him to eat an earthworm in front of a group of kids on our street. When he chickened out, I ate five of them, one after the other, until he ran home crying to his mum."

"During one of the first necropsies I performed on a decomposing body, I accidentally nicked the bowel with my scalpel and it exploded all over me and the supervising pathologist."

"I almost exclusively read non-fiction."

"I like cheesy romantic movies." It was getting easier now, Scully just throwing out the first thing that came into her head when it was her turn.

"I shaved my head when I was sixteen just to make my mother angry."

"I'm apparently immortal."

Stella laughed, her face softening. "Dare I ask?"

Scully grinned back. "Probably best that you don't. I've seen enough strange things to last me a lifetime."

They continued to trade facts back and forth until, finally, Stella swallowed the last of the amber liquid in her glass and set it down, neatly wiping the edge of her lips with one finger before looking at Scully inquisitively. "Dance with me?"

Scully shrugged, unsure. "I don't know. I might need a couple more drinks first. Dancing always makes me feel stupid. Awkward and uncoordinated." She snorted, looking down into her empty glass. "Like I'm fifteen all over again."

Stella reached over and took the glass from her hands and Scully looked up to meet her eyes. "Feel. Don't think. Force yourself to release the tension in your body." Stella ran a fingertip over the curve of Scully's bare shoulder, tracing downward along her arm, and Scully's heart surged from a gentle trot to a full-blown gallop. "None of the people here know who you are. They don't care. You're just another body."

Her fingers brushed over the underside of Scully's wrist before taking her hand in her own. "I know what it's like to get stuck in your own head. Sometimes, it's okay to not think." Stella gave Scully a moment of pause before she gently pulled on her hand and slid out of the booth and stood up. She gestured with her head towards the other chamber and the dance floor. "Yes or no?" she asked softly. "Otherwise, I'll get us another round."

Scully licked her lips. "Yes," she said.

"You know why people dance, don't you?" Stella's breath was hot in her ear as she had to lean close in order to be heard over the thump of the music pulsing around them.

Scully smiled wildly — the pumped up atmosphere of the club was infectious — and moved her mouth to Stella's ear to respond. Feeling bold, she made sure she was close enough that the hint of her lips would brush the shell of her ear in a way that could be taken as accidental… or not. "I'm sure there are many reasons. It's almost entirely exclusive to humans, as a species, and we seem to pick it up spontaneously as young children, regardless of cultural background. I suppose it's a way of expressing one's self without words, of establishing a social connection. And, particularly in the case of the adolescent members of human society," Scully pulled back enough so that Stella could see her raised eyebrow of amusement, "because it can be a socially acceptable simulation of sexual intercourse."

Stella laughed, twining her arms around Scully's neck. "Exactly," she said into Scully's ear, and there was no mistaking the quick touch of her tongue to her earlobe. "Dance with me?" Stella asked, and there was a subtle scrape of teeth. A shiver slid through Scully's body like melted chocolate.

Scully pressed in close, determined not to second guess herself and to just feel, removing the last few inches of space between them. "I think I already am."

Stella's cheek was against her own, damp with perspiration and unbelievably soft. "Close your eyes," she murmured.

Scully let her eyes fall shut. She could feel the low throb of the bass vibrating up through the soles of her feet like a sluggish pulse of blood from the expansion and contraction of the sound waves. She could feel the firm grasp of Stella's hands, now at her hips, both of them swaying to the same tempo; where Stella's body went, Scully's followed in perfect unison. She could smell sweat and cologne and the sweet jasmine of Stella's perfume. She let her head loll back, still keeping her eyes closed, letting out a gasp at the unexpected sensation of Stella leaning in to press a kiss to her suprasternal notch.

She opened her eyes to see Stella watching her, waiting for her reaction. They had stopped moving, two figures standing still amidst a riot of gyrating bodies.

Scully took in the dark shadowed blue of her eyes, the gentle part of her lips, and kissed her, her hands threading through the silken strands of Stella's hair. Her lips were much softer than she would have imagined. The first movement of her mouth was tentative, the second and third more sure, more exploratory as she swiped her tongue across the curve of Stella's top lip, wanting to taste. Not releasing her mouth, Scully drifted her hands down from Stella's neck to her hips. "Dance with me," Scully murmured against the press of Stella's mouth, pulling her hips back into their previous rhythm.

"With pleasure," Stella whispered back.

I hope all of you are having an amazing holiday season and, as always, a mega huge thank you to my beta, Josie Lange!