All of these lines across my face
Tell you the story of who I am
So many stories of where I've been
And how where I've got to where I am
But these stories don't mean anything
When you've got no one to tell them to
It's true
I was made for you
-"The Story", Ingrid Michaelson
The next morning, Mulder awoke, his eyes fluttering open. He immediately noticed he was alone, which wasn't how he imagined waking up, given last night. Mulder envisioned his morning erection pressing deliciously into Scully ass. Instead, her side of the bed was empty.
He padded downstairs, clad in just his boxer briefs, in search of Scully. Poking his head into various rooms of the house, he eventually found her outside on the back deck, enjoying a cup of coffee. Sliding open the door, he stepped outside towards her.
The sound of the door stirred Scully from her reverie, and she craned her neck back to see Mulder step out onto the deck, clad in just jus underwear.
"Mulder!" she hissed. "Your neighbors-"
"Are a half-mile away and nestled in the trees, Scully," he interrupted, coming around form behind her, kissing her on the cheek, and then the lips. "No one can see us right now."
With that, he grinned and bounced his eyebrows. Scully rolled her eyes and swatted at him playfully.
"Good morning," she said looking up from under her lashes, throwing him a shy smile.
"Good morning to you," he returned taking a seat across the table from her. "How long have you been awake?"
"An hour or two maybe?"
"Jesus, what time is it?"
"Ten-ish?" she said with a shrug.
His brow furrowed. "You could have woken me up, you didn't have to be bored down here by yourself."
She smiled softly at him. "I wasn't bored. Besides, when was the last time you had a full night's sleep anyway Mulder?"
He grinned at her. "What year is it again?"
Scully laced her hand through his on the table, feeling at ease with their status quo. "Exactly," she said. "Plus I wanted time to process everything from… last night."
Mulder's heart turned over in his chest in a brief moment of panic, wondering if she was having second thoughts about them, about last night.
"Stop it," she said firmly, understanding what that deer-in-headlights look meant. "Don't even go there, Mulder. I have no regrets about last night…. Last night may have been the best night of my life."
His face twisted into a grin he was unable to suppress. God he loved this woman.
"I did want to talk though, " she began, staring into her empty mug. "Nothing bad or devastating, just… logistics, and other things."
Typical Scully, Mulder smiled inwardly. Such a type A personality she was.
"Mind if I get some coffee first?" he asked, standing.
"Of course not," she said, lifting her mug up to him with a smile. "Wanna get me another cup too?"
He could deny her nothing. "Your wish is my command, Agent Scully."
And with that, he disappeared into the house for coffee.
Scully hadn't meant to frighten him. She'd simply wanted to discuss the logistics of their relationship once they got back to Washington, what ground rules they needed, and so on. The other thing she wanted to talk to him about was an extension of their conversation yesterday in the car. Mulder alluded to having a tough time, even now, coping with her tough bout with cancer. She wanted to talk to him now about it, squash it, and move forward from there.
To be honest, she wanted to set a precedence of dealing with things together, instead of separately, when what they needed was each other's comfort and strength. Their partnership continually proved the point that together they were stronger. They were inseparable. Their stint in Antarctica proved that to their enemies. And now that they'd crossed the line between friendship and romance, it was important as ever to not shut each other out.
"So tell me what's going on in that pretty head of yours, Scully," said Mulder from behind her.
She'd not heard him come back. He sat their mugs down on the table, and took his seat once again, this time at the chair to her right, his back to the edge of the deck and the water.
"Okay," she began, not knowing really where to start. "I have two things I want to talk about… one is uncomplicated and the other is kind of deep and difficult. You pick which one you'd like to talk about first."
Mulder's brow furrowed momentarily. It was probably best to get the heavy stuff out of the way.
"Let's go for the gusto, Scully. Let's take care of the heavy things first."
She sighed deeply, not knowing where this was going to go or how it would pan out. Mulder was still fragile in many ways.
"We talked about it in the car yesterday," she alluded, trailing off, hoping he'd get the drift.
She could see resignation in Mulder's eyes once he realized what she meant.
"Ah, yes. That certainly is heavy."
"Mulder, I have to know. Tell me what you were feeling, what you were thinking. Let go of the hurt, because it's over now. You were there for me through it. Let me be there for you now."
He was silent for several minutes. Scully wasn't sure if he was even going to say anything at all. And then, he spoke.
"I remember the first time I saw you in the hospital. Skinner was with me, he told me your room number and I sprinted to just before your room. The curtain was open and I could see you in bed, with tubes hooked up to you," he paused, his breathing ragged. He wanted to do this without crying.
She placed her hand on his, squeezing it, encouraging him to continue. He needed this; he needed to purge these feelings he'd kept in for so long.
"Scully, that sight of you, it hit me like a ton of bricks, physically and emotionally. It was like reality just sucker punched me. I bent over, I couldn't breathe. Jesus Scully, Skinner told me you were dying, and I couldn't believe it. I refused. I felt so foolish about everything we'd ever fought about… I felt so overcome with grief that I couldn't fucking breathe," he stopped, his chest beginning to heave with emotion.
He looked down at the planks of wood of the deck, knowing this was only going to get worse before it got better.
Scully listened to his account intently, tears silently trickling down her face, for the pain Mulder experienced.
After a few moments, he continued. "Scully I would have made a deal with the devil for a cure for you. I ran around frantically. I was so torn between wanting to search for answers, for a cure and to spend what could have been…" he choked up, letting the tears go now. "What could have been your last days…"
"Oh god Scully," he cried. "I was frantic, I was desperate, I was out of my mind. When I saw you, your eyes sunken in, looking…. Looking like you were terminally ill… Scully something in me died I think. I lost hope. You have been my everything. And that was about to be taken from me. You've been so capable and self-sufficient… you're so stronger than me."
He looked up at her then, their hands clasped. His face was wet with tears. When he looked her in the eye, Scully nearly wailed with the pain she saw in his eyes.
"Scully," he whispered, his voice thick with emotion. "I didn't think I was going to make it if you weren't there, honestly. I didn't want to live."
"Mulder, no!" she cried, jumping out of her chair and into his lap, hugging him tightly, burying her face into the warm skin of his neck. The very thought of him being in so much anguish over her, that he thought about taking his own life…. That was an overwhelming thought that Scully couldn't even begin to comprehend.
He held her tight to him as he continued, feeling stronger now that she was in his arms.
"I went to your room when you were in a coma, and I held your hand and I sobbed. I sobbed because I loved you and never told you, I sobbed because I felt like it was all my fault, and I wished that it were me with the cancer and you able to walk away with a normal life."
Scully pulled back to look at him. Placing her hands on his face, she swiped his tears with her thumbs.
"Mulder, I want you to squash that guilt now," she said sagely. "This is not your fault, you couldn't have stopped this. It was bigger than both of us. And more importantly, you and I are both right here. Right now. And I am cancer-free. And that is all that matters from here on out."
He nodded and closed his eyes as she stroked his face softly. It felt good to Mulder to tell Scully what he'd been feeling. He wanted to be the pillar of strength for her, her caretaker. But he stuffed his feelings and they took the backseat for a long time, and he hadn't realized how much it'd taken a toll on him.
He sighed softly, enjoying Scully in his arms and the basking in the sensation of them both being alive and well, and here together.
"Tell me what you're thinking," she whispered.
Mulder pulled her tighter to him, so he cradled her now, instead of her straddling him.
"Sometimes I wish we could have normal jobs and lives. Sometimes I want to leave this all behind, Scully. And after losing you, nearly forever in Antarctica… Sometimes I feel like I don't have it left in me to fight for the truth. I just want to live out the rest of our days together, happy," he said, nuzzling her hair. "Scully, the X-Files have taken so much from you. I don't want them to take anything else. I just want to spend as much time as I can giving back to you what I can."
Scully's eyes pricked with tears again. The guilt this man carried with him was such a heavy load. She wished she could wave her hand and make it all go away.
"Mulder you said it yourself… if we quit now, they win," she said quietly. "We're alive, we're healthy. If you quit, you're going to resent it later on down the road. I know you too well. You are a noble man. You're a good man, and you and I are fighting a noble cause."
He tightened his arms around her in response, Scully's words touching him where he needed it most.
"From here on out, Mulder," she whispered, smoothing back his hair with her hand. "We can't keep stuff like this from each other. If we're going to be together, we can't hide. When things get hard, we have to turn to each other."
Mulder smiled at that. "I hope that means I'll never have to hear an 'I'm fine' from you ever again."
She chuckled. "The door swings both ways."
"I love you, Scully. Thank you for this."
"And I love you, g-man."
Scully extracted herself from his embrace and planted her feet on the deck, standing up. She grabbed his hand and pulled him up with her.
"C'mon, let's go inside. It's getting humid out. We can finish talking inside."
Mulder gathered their mugs and they headed inside. He wondered to himself what he'd done to deserve someone like Dana Scully. He sent up a silent prayer of gratitude to a god he wasn't sure he believed in, just in case.
The pair moved to the living room sofa. Both of them smiled internally, remembering the events taking place on the sofa last night. Mulder sat down first, and pulled Scully down with him, placing a throw pillow in his lap, so she could lay down and look up at him.
"So what else is on your mind, Scully? Hopefully something a bit lighter than the last subject," he chuckled, smoothing his hand over her abdomen. She flexed her muscles under his touch and shivered lightly, continually in awe at how his touch affected her.
"Yes, much lighter," she said, smiling up at him. "I guess I just wanted to discuss what's going to happen when we get back to Washington."
"What do you mean?" he said quizzically. He thought they were both in agreement about where this was headed.
"I mean what is our course of action for being together romantically but still effective work partners?"
He was amused at how Scully was such a creature of habit, perpetually looking forward. Meanwhile, Mulder lived in the here and now. Those two combining factors was one of the many things that made them work as a duo.
"Actually, Scully, I think very little will change," he said finally.
Her brow quirked at that. "How so?"
"I mean, nothing has changed besides the fact that we have openly acknowledged something that has been continually existing between us for awhile. The only difference is, we're intimate now. Obviously we know the tactful boundaries in the office and those will be in place."
Scully's worries soothed at that. He was right, of course. Very little had changed when she thought about it. But it felt like everything had changed. Not that it was a bad thing.
"But when we get home at the end of the day, your ass is mine," he said with a wry grin.
"Oh is that so?" she volleyed back. "And your ass is mine."
"Looking forward to it."
"What about out in the field?"
"Honestly, nothing really changes there either, Scully. We conduct ourselves, business as usual. We still have to get two rooms so our expense reports are in check," he trailed off, moving his hand down to her hips, smoothing them lightly over the fabric of her shorts. "But I hope you'll at least want to sleep in the same bed when we're staying in our usual no-tell motels."
She grinned at him. "Well it's either that or I get to listen to you from the other side of the wall, watching those videos you claim you don't own."
He laughed then, leaning down to kiss her. "Oh no, Agent Scully. Now that I've had the real thing, my interest in adult films has dwindled."
Scully nearly purred at his touch. "Oh yeah?" she said breathlessly. "What if I want to watch one with you?"
Mulder closed his eyes. "Scully, are you trying to kill me?"
She snickered. "Oh Mulder, the things I want to do to you."
"How about you give me a little sample of what you mean, if we're done talking that is."
"Mmm, I think that about covers it. How about we go into the kitchen and we christen that island in there?"
Mulder pulled himself and Scully off the couch, and he ushered her into the kitchen. With the weight off his shoulders now, they could get down to the purpose of this weekend – to enjoy each other.