A/N: I finally give you Chapter 2. I do want to note that this chapter digs into some more serious matters only glossed over in The X-Files. That's nothing against the show, but I wanted to bring such issues a little more to the forefront.
Otherwise, there are numerous references to previous episodes in this chapter, some of them more vague than others. To help with that, here's a listing of some of the referenced episodes: Season 1's "The Jersey Devil," Season 2's "Duane Barry"/"Ascension," "Irresistable," Season 4's "Never Again," "Small Potatoes," Season 5's "Folie a Deux," Season 6's "Milagro," and Season 7's "Orison."
Finally, happy reading, folks!
A clatter against the window woke her. Her body convulsed sharply as her eyes flew open. She had been in one of those deep, deep sleeps where even the smallest noise can jar you awake. The rhythmic clatter against the glass continued, and she looked over for the source of the noise. A dull brown tree branch against the morose backdrop of a gray sky tapped repeatedly on the window thanks to an ongoing storm. She could see small droplets of rain cling to the glass. It was a rainy Wednesday in Washington D.C.
Once the day's somber weather conditions filtered into her sleep-clouded mind, she slowly realized she wasn't at home. She wasn't in her own bed, and furthermore, she was without any clothes. She blinked hurriedly as she tried to piece together the night before, but her groggy mind didn't want to work that quickly.
Alright, Dana Scully thought to herself a bit nervously. Let's ensure I'm alright. I don't feel feverish or drugged. Have I incurred any bodily damage? She pulled her arms from beneath the single heavy blanket that covered her. An initial inspection told her that she'd not been wounded anyway; there were no gashes, puncture marks, or bruises of any sort. That was a good sign, but a low throbbing pain settled on her limbs. She carefully stretched her legs under the blanket and sensed a similar soreness there. Her legs were stiff. I don't remember any physical exertion, Scully thought hazily. Have I been running? She slowly moved her tired limbs to try and relieve some of the stiffness, and a sudden fear settled on her as her mind continued to sharpen in prolonged consciousness. Why am I naked? Her foot brushed up against something under the blanket. Flesh, her mind hastily communicated.
Scully's chest constricted and her heart about stopped as a sharp gasp escaped her. She spun her head to one side; she was laying shoulder to shoulder with someone—a man, she deduced, based upon his overall size and bare chest. Her eyes roamed up his chest and to the back of his head. Short, brown hair covered the man's scalp, and Scully quickly realized that she knew that hair—and the head to which it belonged—though the man was facing away from her at the moment. Despite her realization, she could still feel the tension of nervousness within her. She had to confirm that the man next to her was who she thought he was. She had too many nightmarish scenarios to take a chance on anything remotely out of the ordinary. Scully eyed the man's chest; his breathing was slow and rhythmic. He was still asleep. Attempting not to jostle the bed and risk waking him, Scully slowly sat up and leaned over his prone figure. If she could just get a look at his face….
Fox Mulder. It was Fox Mulder. The anxiety that had built up within her was quickly expelled in a long sigh as she abruptly fell back onto the bed. As the pillow comfortably cushioned her head, she closed her eyes just to take in the sounds around her. Perhaps some quiet reflection would settle down her jangled nerves and thumping heart—let her body return to a normal rhythm. With her eyes closed, her hearing alternatively sharpened. A rush of wind blew the tree branch against the bedroom window, so it resumed its monotonous tap tap taping. A light rainfall slapped against the glass. While an avid fan of sunshine and warm weather, Scully loved the sound of thunderstorms and rushing water. The rumble of a thunderstorm passing overhead while snuggled up in bed was among the most tranquil and soothing experiences ever, in her opinion. The additional faint sound of Mulder's shallow breathing as he lay next to her only improved the experience. On the other hand, the knowledge that Mulder was lying next to her after an unexpected night in his bed only caused reality to come rushing back to Scully.
Her eyes popped open again, and she stretched her neck, flexing it left and right. Despite the stiffness and soreness she felt, she knew she'd need to get moving soon. Scully sat up again, and leaned over to look at Mulder's sleeping face. He was calm and at peace, probably the most peaceful she had ever seen him outside the times he was heavily sedated and lying in a hospital bed. It was a nice sight; Mulder deserved an authentic sense of peace, especially after all the years he had invested in the search for Samantha or his beloved truth. He was owed some happiness outside the realm of his all-encompassing quest. Scully smiled.
Slowly, her eyes drifted down the length of his body, mostly uncovered by the blanket. His arms lay relaxed against his chest and stomach, lightly pinning the blanket to him. His long legs stretched out to the foot of the bed. Scully had forgotten what an admirable body Mulder had; she was so used to seeing him in suits or the occasional t-shirt accompanied by his worn leather jacket. During those circumstances where she had seen him nude, she had more pressing concerns to attend to: combating a debilitating illness, trying to stave off death, or preparing for yet another government-issued quarantine. Scully chuckled lightly to herself before her eyes strayed to look at her own body—equally naked.
Well, that explains the soreness, she mused to herself. It had been so long since she had been with a man. She couldn't remember what that was like anymore—let alone what it was like to wake up in the morning next to one.
Scully had invested herself so fully into the X-Files over the last seven years that any semblance of a personal life or a sex life no longer existed for her. She never knew when she was going to get called to fly across the country for a case. She spent more nights a week in a motel than in her own bed at home in Georgetown. And that didn't even include the odd night she spent on Mulder's couch when he was recovering from a recent hospital visit or the nights at The Lone Gunmen's apartment when crucial data had to be analyzed overnight.
She had tried to remain personable and social early in her assignment to the X-Files. She had visited with friends, gone to parties, and done all the other communal activities common to a woman her age. She even went on a date or two. But nothing ever came of it. The dates were fine, and the men were nice enough, if not charming. Scully vaguely recalled a specific date that Mulder had characteristically interrupted early in their partnership. Rob or Rod, Scully thought to herself, struggling to remember the man's name. He had been a perfect gentleman despite the obscurities of the date and the rude interruption. Scully seemed to remember him going so far as to actually ask her on a second date, though she declined. Her heart hadn't been in it at the time. She was much too caught up in the whirlwind affair of working with Mulder on the X-Files.
And then there was the additional fact that working with Mulder proved to be consistently dangerous. People frequently died on their cases—innocents that they had briefly met or interviewed during the conduction of their investigations. Old friends and associates were frequently caught up in the mayhem, too: Mulder's Bureau buddies, Jerry Lamana and Reggie Purdue, and poor Jack Willis had all tragically died. Ultimately, it wasn't safe for Scully to be involved with anyone so personally or romantically; there was too much risk involved. Scully had found herself shying away from going out with friends or on dates; she didn't want to be the cause of their untimely deaths. Keeping to herself and staying in at night slowly became a habit, one compounded by the fact that she always had paperwork to go over or a flight to catch. And the habit ultimately turned into the norm for her. She found that she didn't miss the obnoxious social scenes and outings much. Her life—just like Mulder's—slowly belonged to the X-Files and their work.
Scully considered her last date—if it even could be called a date. Ultimately, the entire ordeal ended up as an X-File. Ed Jerse, Scully thought with a stab of remorse tinged with embarrassment. She had been diagnosed with cancer, and she wasn't ready to release control of her life as her body decided to rapidly shut down. Jerse had lost his marriage, his children, and his job. They were both hurting and looked to each other for solace and a freedom from pain. A chance conversation in a tattoo parlor led to drinks and stories in a ramshackle bar. Accepting Jerse's invitation to go out went against Scully's better instincts, but at the time, she just didn't care—not to mention that she was angry at Mulder at the time. She had needed to cut loose and cope with the news of her cancer diagnosis in her own way. It ended with her getting a tattoo, an Ouroboros on her lower back. Scully reached behind her and touched the spot where she knew the ink was etched; she twisted around and tried to catch a glimpse of it, but it was placed in a difficult spot for her to see without the assistance of a mirror. She traced a circle on her back lightly with her forefinger, her eyes drifting to Mulder once more. He was aware of her tattoo. He had to be considering its significance in the later filed X-File. Scully wasn't sure if she had ever openly shown it to him, though. That case—the entire event with Jerse—had been a point of contention for them for a time. Mulder had been furious at her that she could be so reckless as to go home with a stranger, and a delusional one at that. Such carelessness was how ignorant women got killed, he had reminded her, and she had almost been counted among them. She had understood Mulder's silent anger and apathy toward her at the time of the incident; he couldn't imagine what would compel her to even take such an action—the ever-rational, clever Dana Scully. Of course, that was before she had told him about her diagnosis.
Even after telling him the truth—even after her cancer went in remission—Scully could still sense that she had hurt Mulder by spending that night with Jerse. Truth be told, nothing had come of it. Perhaps a couple drunken, distraught kisses. But afterwards, they had both gone to bed—she in the bedroom and he on the couch. It proceeded nothing like her previous night with Mulder—where she began on the couch and somehow ended up in his bed.
And while her night with Mulder—when they were actually awake and speaking and theorizing—had began with a sense of distress and perhaps hopelessness, it ended on a deliberate, conscious note. They had not simply crushed into each other, sloppily making out as they stumbled to the bed. There had been decisive purpose to their interaction. Scully supposed the entirety of the night before served as a prime example of the nature of their partnership on both a professional and private level. Nothing was ever base or carnal or selfish between them; it was refreshingly genuine.
Such reflections didn't distract Scully from the morning-after guilt she felt, though. She had honestly enjoyed her night with Mulder and was glad he had gently convinced her to go ahead with it despite her hesitancies. Nonetheless, she still questioned her own motives in sleeping with him. Yes, she wanted it to happen, but a side of her was still agitated by her last encounter with Daniel Waterston—that he thought there was a future to be had between them. She was forced to dash his hopes for a second time, and Scully feared that her seemingly heartless action had left her craving for affection in whatever form in came; in this case, the form of Fox Mulder.
Suddenly immensely uncomfortable with the thought of sitting there naked in Mulder's bed for a moment longer than she had to, Scully slid off it and onto the ground. She glanced up at the window as the minor storm continued to pass through. The dim gray of the sky was just as gray as before, so she couldn't hazard a guess of how much time had passed or what time it actually was. Out of habit, she raised her wrist to check her watch, but found it missing. The bedside table nearest her held nothing but old papers and other clutter. She turned around to look at the table by Mulder, his preferred table no doubt since a desk lamp and alarm clock sat on it.
7:13.
Well, that answers that question, Scully thought. There was still the matter of finding her watch, though. She didn't remember taking it off the night before, so had Mulder done so? What about her—? Scully's hands flew to her neck. The thin, gold chain was still there. She breathed a sigh of relief. Her fingers nimbly ran along the chain seeking the little religious icon she always kept on her person. Finally, she felt the familiar shape of the tiny, unadorned cross. She held it up so she could get a good look at it, almost as if it confirm it was actually there and not some phantom image. Satisfied with its appearance, she set it back down and returned to her original purpose: finding her watch so that she could quickly dress and get out of Mulder's apartment before he woke.
Scully wandered around the end of the bed and up by Mulder. Her eyes quickly spied her prize. Alongside the desk lamp and alarm clock sat her watch. To Scully's surprise, it looked exceptionally nondescript next to Mulder's larger watch and cluttered among his personal effects.
No, this is not going to become the norm, Scully promised herself as she snapped her watch on. I've "played house" with Mulder before. I'm not sure it's an experience I want to repeat. She had the distinct feeling she had just made a promise she would be breaking, but she wasn't of the right mindset to consider her future with Mulder. She had to concentrate on getting away from him at the moment.
Her eyes quickly scanned the ground for her clothes. Thankfully, they were mostly dropped in a pile on the floor. The only piece she couldn't find were her stockings, and one glance around the room told her that searching for them would be a lost cause. She would make due with the remainder of her outfit. Scooping up the pile, she made her way to the bathroom, stopping for a moment to drape her jacket on the edge of the bed.
Typically, she'd close the bathroom door for a bit of privacy, but at this point, what did it matter? Mulder had seen her naked before. If he happened to wake—something Scully prayed he didn't do—would it be that different to see her dress? Scully didn't want to dilly-dally, though. She slipped on her undergarments followed by her skirt and sweater. She took care to zip up her skirt and nicely fix her sweater over it. That's when she finally got a glimpse of her hair.
Obvious bedhead, she just about groaned. She fiddled with it some, trying to smooth it down so it looked somewhat presentable. A benefit of having such a short cut was that her hair was easily manageable. It didn't take that much work to maintain, and that included when preparing to take the oft-embarrassing "walk of shame."
Scully didn't find herself ashamed, though—at least for the usual reasons a woman did after unexpectedly spending a night in another's bed. She was just cut up about how her interactions with Daniel possibly affected her later reactions to Mulder. It hadn't been as sincere a first night as she would have wanted, and she just felt she had done Mulder wrong.
Returning to the bedroom, Scully swept up her jacket and pulled it on, watching Mulder all the while. Observing him sleeping so soundly and peacefully did nothing for her already guilty conscience, and she slipped out into his living room. The shoes that she had happily kicked off the previous night upon arriving at Mulder's apartment sat beside the couch. She hastily pulled on her heels before looking around for her last article of clothing: her long outdoor jacket.
Scully had been so tired entering Mulder's apartment the day before that she didn't recall where it had gone. She remembered Mulder taking it from her in the little entrance hall that connected the kitchen to the remainder of the apartment. She began in that direction and immediately spotted her coat appropriately hanging from the coat rack that sat near the front door. As she slipped her coat on, she admired the peculiar piece of furniture. It was a coat rack like any other except for the unusual addition of pool balls on the end of each arm.
Where does Mulder find these things? she asked herself as she checked her coat pockets for her keys, FBI badge, and wallet. She rarely carried a purse since it was a cumbersome item and she usually needed unrestricted movement. Coats with overly large pockets suited her just fine. She fished her keys out from one such pocket, unlocked Mulder's front door, and quietly stepped out. Silently thanking Mulder for insisting all those years ago that she take a spare key to his apartment, she locked the door once more. Her heels click clicked as she marched down the hall to the elevator.
Another choice. The bath or the shower? Scully crossed her arms over her large, fluffy robe as she considered her options. She knew she wanted to clean herself off after yet another visit to the hospital the day before, not to mention after having driven home in yesterday's clothes. Despite being a medical doctor, and therefore being overtly familiar with hospitals, morgues, and other such places of healing and research, she never got over the feeling of them. Though they were expected to be among the cleanest places on earth given careful sterilization procedures to ensure that the healthy remained that way while the sick got better, the cleanliness and the stark white-washed walls and the sea of running doctors coats and scrubs always left a tacky, oily feeling on her skin. Whenever she returned from an autopsy or a shift at the hospital, Scully wanted nothing more than a warm bath to scrub away all the filth.
And that's where Scully met a roadblock. As much as she wanted a bath, she had refused to take one over the last few months. When she stared at her lovely claw-footed tub, all she could think of was Donald Pfaster.
"I'm gonna go run you a bath," he had said, and he had run one. She'd seen that after police came to clear up the crime scene. Her bedroom had been in shambles, the hallways showed some signs of struggle, but her bathroom had been immaculate. Candles lit everywhere with a myriad of soaps and shampoos displayed proudly near her sink. The room stank of scented bath oils. The image was burned into her memory and still chilled her to the bone.
Pfaster had invaded her home, her most private of sanctuaries. And that wasn't the first time that was to happen. Duane Barry had done the same thing. Both men were dead, of course, so there was something positive to take away from the events, but it wasn't without the want of effort. Pfaster had actually died in her own living room with a bullet from Scully's own gun. Mulder had him in hand, but Scully couldn't let it continue. She thought Pfaster realized that; he'd looked at her just before she pulled the trigger, maybe admiring the fact that he had forced a normally cool-headed, analytical woman to catch a glimpse of the wild demon chained up within herself. For the briefest of moments, Scully became something akin to him, and it perhaps allowed him to die with a twisted sense of accomplishment as he corrupted the seemingly incorruptible.
Men encroaching on and manipulating her for their perverse ends; Scully was sick of it. If it wasn't the Duane Barry's and Donald Pfaster's, it was the Eddie Van Blundht's and Phillip Padgett's.
At first glance, Eddie appeared sincere and innocent, a doughy man-child who'd likely always been overlooked in favor of his more traditionally handsome peers. He was pleasant to talk to—a goofy, well-mannered oddball who used his natural charm and sensitivity to win over women. It was easy to feel sympathy for Eddie and his unwanted plight—until one learned of Eddie's miraculous shape-shifting ability and his decision to pose as husband's and loved ones to rape unwitting women.
Scully had nearly been one of his many victims, too.
As to be expected, he pretended to be Mulder, Scully's partner of nearly four years at the time. Even three years later, she kicked herself for not having seen through Eddie's charade. She knew Mulder, yet she had been taken in by a sensitive pseudo-Mulder. In hindsight, she realized that maybe that had been what she wanted out of their relationship at the time, though: a Mulder who was willing to look at a life outside the X-Files and his elaborate conspiracies; a Mulder who could be a regular person for the night, having a drink and swapping life stories. While Eddie might have thought he was doing her a favor—presenting her with a side of Mulder she hadn't seen before—that was far from the truth. He had no right to masquerade as Mulder for the supposed purpose of serving mutual interests: emotional needs for her and physical ones for him. Eddie's logic was at fault; he was not Mulder, and anything he tried to do in Mulder's stead did not equate to Mulder having done so. If the night had gone according to Eddie's plans, Scully would not have slept with Fox Mulder; she would have been raped by Eddie Van Blundht.
And if she had allowed herself to be, Scully would have been ravished by Phillip Padgett. In a certain way, Padgett's pursuit of her scared her more than the other men's attempts to violate her. Whereas the others focused on the physical, Padgett had been entranced by the heart. She had been a muse to him—fulfilling his fantastical emotional and sexual desires. That's why he wrote about her. He thought he saw a kindred soul in her: a lonely woman looking for the passion of another to enflame and enrapture her while she walked through a world misjudged and overlooked by others. And Padgett was mesmerized by this interpretation of her, thinking he had found a woman he could love—a woman who could actually fulfill his emotional and sexual desires in reality.
Padgett certainly knew Scully, at least insofar as it regarded her everyday life: that she lived in Georgetown, that she frequently went jogging, that she was religious. No doubt he had learned that information from observing her for a prolonged period of time. A period that culminated in his moving next door to Mulder so that he could be near to her and finally have the fateful opportunity to meet her.
The look he had given her on their first meeting in the elevator. He just stared, as if transfixed. It was uncomfortably intimate. And every later time they met, it was the same stare. As if he believed that the harder he looked, the easier he would be able to read her soul. And while he might have been able to perceive some things, he wasn't able to guess it all.
He believed her to be lonely—a woman stuck in a man's world and required to constantly appear cold and in control while secretly seeking intimacy and the chance to be perceived as womanly. Perhaps that had been true; perhaps that's why Scully had been intrigued by him. He claimed to know so much about her, and so much of that had hit home. The way he looked at her; it was as if he did love her, and his thoughts on the world spoke of a greater knowledge and understanding of the universe's wonders. It left one entranced and at a loss for words.
But her dignity still remained. Even if Mulder hadn't burst into Padgett's apartment at the appropriate moment—impeccable timing when one considered it—she wouldn't have fallen into Padgett's arms sick with unrepressed desire. As much as he seemingly loved her, the feelings could not be reciprocated. The Scully he wrote of in his book was a character, an imitation of her. And as much as he willed Scully to fall in love with him, as her counterpart had done, she couldn't. By the end of his incarceration, Padgett had finally realized that. Scully was not the woman of his dreams and his writings; she was not a character that could be compelled and controlled, no matter how well he claimed to understand her. And in Padgett's mind, that realization came about because of one fatal mistake on his part.
Scully was already in love.
She stepped over to the shower, having decided to forego a bath once more. The warm, drizzling water soothed her joints, but Padgett still swum in the forefront of her mind. His final bit of conjecture before his subsequent death: that she was in love. It had struck her forcefully, not necessarily because he had come to help her realize a truth, but because he was able to perceive that truth—one she was already painfully aware of. It was a truth she had been trying to keep hidden—from herself, from the rest of the world. And Padgett had simply cracked through her distant demeanor and identified the one secret of her heart.
It hadn't escaped her who Padgett was directing those final statements to either: "Agent Scully is already in love." She had been spoken of in the third person, like a character in one of his books again. He only graced her with a look upon mentioning her name; otherwise, he spoke to Mulder. For what purpose? To inform Mulder of the fact? To concede victory to Mulder? To warn Mulder not to miss his chance? To commend Mulder on having won her heart?
Whether or not Mulder understood Padgett's message at the time, she had no idea. She suspected he did, but he made no indication one way or the other. They simply continued business as usual, at least until the night of the Millenium.
And though she hadn't admitted it to him, Mulder had won her heart. She tried to pinpoint the exact moment she had realized; it was a tricky thing to do because emotions evolve. They are constantly in flux. Looking back in hindsight, Scully could perceive that at one point she felt strictly friendship towards Mulder, yet at another point, new emotions were suddenly present—as if out of nowhere. While uncertain, Scully suspected she could determine the turning point in her life: at a hospital in Chicago at the conclusion of their fifth year working together. Shortly before the Antarctica incident.
She and Mulder were stuck at their typical impasse. He believed in the validity of something thoroughly implausible while she saw no evidence supporting his theory. There was a striking difference between that occasion and every other case they had worked on formerly, though. Scully had refused to help Mulder seek out his proof on the basis that doing so would maintain the delusions of the mentally ill Gary Lambert. Scully had driven Mulder into working alone, and he subsequently acted as he always did—as a man determined to discover the truth no matter the cost. Scully had abandoned him when he had asked for her trust, and without her aid, he was forced to act rashly. After a failed attempt to attain the proof he sought, he was labeled—like the late Lambert—as a madman.
Scully had declared that she would not act so as to offer credence to Lambert's ravings. But what of Mulder's insistencies? Though she rarely believed in Mulder's assertions of mythical beasts and superhuman powers, she had always given him the chance to prove himself, and more often than not his implausible theories were right. And hadn't he always listened to her many refutations as they underwent their investigations? Yet in the case of Gary Lambert, Scully had refused to consider the notion that what he possibly saw was real. She had betrayed Mulder's trust, and he had paid a price, yet he did so without placing blame at her feet. Of all things, he pleaded with her instead—not necessarily asking her to believe him; he just didn't want to be disregarded. He had always been disregarded in life—by his family, by his superiors, by his peers. He was Spooky Mulder, the mad genius chasing after imaginary monsters. And he had finally ended up strapped to a hospital bed, where he ultimately belonged in the minds of many. And the partner he was supposed to be able to trust implicitly could only look on sympathetically wishing him well. Scully couldn't look past the strictly scientific diagnosis that Mulder suffered from some fanatical delusion because there was no evidence to the contrary. And she was a scientist, ultimately—a marshal of hard facts and irrefutable data. Without such evidence, there was no case—no matter what Mulder believed in.
But that was always it, wasn't it? Mulder was the believer while she, Scully, was the skeptic. She couldn't see the world for what it was as easily as him. But could she make the leap with his life on the line?
Scully, you have to believe me. Nobody else on this whole damn planet does or ever will. You're my one in five billion.
Belief. Believe. I want to believe: Mulder's mantra. The one plastered up on the wall of their basement office. That's what it came down to. It wasn't easy to believe. It always required a personal effort. Scully could attest to that after having reclaimed her faith. For years she wore her cross out of pure habit, a keepsake of a Christmas long ago. But with her cancer diagnosis and the looming threat of death, she found herself relying on her faith once again, praying for Mulder to root out the latest government conspiracy, praying for a cure. An impending threat enabled her to take the risky leap toward belief. A risk because with belief came the prospect of hope, and what would happen if that hope died?
And Mulder's words were a portent of another such threat—of losing him. Scully wasn't sure if she wanted to believe or if she did believe. But she wanted to try to believe. And she had found the strength to take that leap again.
A ringing phone shook her from her reflections. The sound reverberated through her tiled bathroom from its source in her nearby bedroom. Scully wrung the clinging water from her hair and stepped into the chill air of the bathroom. Snatching up her robe, she pulled it on and padded out to her bedroom.
"Scully," she answered, picking up the phone on its fifth ring. She hoped the dialer hadn't already hung up.
"Uh...hey, Scully," came a familiar drawl.
"Mulder," she replied, her breath unexpectedly hitching up in her throat. What was he doing calling? She fiddled with her robe tie and peered over to her alarm clock by the bed. 9:37 it glared at her in bold, red lights.
Just over two hours since I left...and he's already calling? She wasn't sure if she was ready to talk to him just yet. She simultaneously became aware of the tone-deafening silence on the phone.
"What's going on?" she awkwardly asked, beginning to wonder whether something had happened.
"I was wondering if everything was alright," came the curious reply.
"Uh...yeah. Why?" Scully's brows knit together in confusion and she stiffened.
"Well, I woke up and you were gone," Mulder said matter-of-factly. She could hear the hint of a smile in his tone. "I almost made good on my promise to call in the search and rescue teams." Realization dawning upon her, her straight-backed stance relaxed some.
"Oh," she breathed. "I'm sorry, Mulder. I-I just wanted to get home and take a shower. Spending the last few days in and out of the hospital was not my idea of a fun weekend." She blatantly overlooked the fact that she suddenly found herself a bit uncomfortable around Mulder with her motives for last night's actions in question.
"And the paperwork," Mulder added.
"I'm sorry."
"You said last night you had paperwork you wanted to get to today," he clarified, sounding a bit surprised she had forgotten.
"Yes!" she replied, perhaps a bit too exuberantly. "That, too."
"Will you be at the office?"
"Probably not. I have what I need here, and I'd like to have a day at home. I never did get that bath on Saturday," she quipped, feebly attempting to add a bit of levity to the seemingly awkward, forced conversation. Scully wondered if Mulder sensed anything off. If he did, he made no indication of it.
"I hear you." She could practically hear him grinning through the phone. "I plan on spending the day in, too. Figuring out what to tell Skinner in my report of the England incident."
"I'd steer clear of anything suggesting it was a big waste of time." Scully felt an authentic smile slip to her lips. Mulder chuckled.
"I'd considered that much. Just got to figure the rest out." He sighed. "But I'll see you in the office tomorrow?"
"Yep," she replied. Maybe by then she'd have the courage to confront him.
"See you then." The phone clicked against her ear. She set it down with a sigh.
The conversation as a whole could easily have been much more disastrous. Mulder had simply been concerned about her well-being, and she couldn't fault him. She did have the unfortunate habit of being abducted by serial killers, mad men, and all that sort. But she wondered if he had expected her to stay at his apartment through the morning. Would he have gotten up and served her coffee as he read the morning paper? Or would he have offered to take her out to a real breakfast considering the usual barren state of his fridge? After one night together, was that what he saw them as: a real couple? She fantasized a stereotypical 1950s household scenario. Her waking up early to cook eggs and bacon on the stovetop. Mulder sitting down at his dining table to browse the paper as she readied his place setting with sugar and milk and toast and orange juice and whatever else a 50s housewife prepared for her husband. The image burst as she laughed at the idea of Mulder being so ordinary and mundane, let alone her. No. Whatever came of their future, that certainly wasn't it.
But she did have to consider their future, and more importantly—at least for the moment—the ramifications of the night before. She felt she had done an ill-turn, taking advantage of Mulder's affection towards her and close proximity to placate an ardent yearning that had suddenly been aroused within her. Daniel Waterston's unexpected reappearance had been the catalyst, and it incited a flurry of emotions and questions within Scully. She had realized that she wanted for something—something that was lacking in her life. What that was, she had no earthly idea. Yet after the emotional turmoil surrounding Waterston's near-death and Mulder's unexpected return—while in the darkness of apartment 42—she clung to the idea that the missing facet was Mulder himself. Having him in a way that went beyond simple friendship and partnership.
She had wanted him, and she had gotten him, but had it been for the right reasons? Despite Mulder's assurances that he wanted her equally, Scully believed that her reasons had to be inferior to his, resulting from a selfish, conceited source stirred up by Daniel's promptings.
And Scully had to tell Mulder as much. If she were ever to feel comfortable around Mulder again rather than a user—like some addict driven solely by uncontrollable need—she had to explain herself.
Secondarily, she had to close off Daniel Waterston from her life forever lest he incite her to more rash actions. And that would mean another visit to the hospital.