CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Mulder Manor
Beverly Hills, Los Angeles
May 17, 1985
Friday

Mulder had been going through the pile of last minute wedding invitations that Emily dumped on his head an hour ago, making sure that the addresses were correct and the names on them were polished. The flowery scent of the beige and soft orange envelopes was already permanently imprinted onto Mulder's nostrils and he was getting nauseated with the mere feel of its silky paper. He wanted to move around so that he could take care of the upcoming movie; he wanted...

A door creaked open from upstairs and out came Scully. Emily was behind her and they were quietly conversing about something he didn't -but wanted to - know about. Mulder pretended to be busy with the invitations, checking if the names "Ringgo Langley, Melvin Frohike, and John Fitzgerald Byers" were printed correctly.

Since their move back to Los Angeles, Scully had been treating him with eerie coolness - as if time had suddenly flipped them back to the moment they first met. They had talked about the "big mistake" Mulder committed (like a fucking crime) in The Voodoo Lounge, chalked it up to the wine since it was the convenient scapegoat, and Scully even assured him with this: "No bother, Mulder, I understand. It was just a mistake, because of the wine. I'm still yours, you know. Nothing like that could come in the way of our purpose here."

If that was so, then why was she treating him like a pest, a cockroach? He once tried holding her hand during the turbulent flight back to Los Angeles (since she was starting to turn plae) and she swatted him away with a jerk, eliciting stifled laughter from their fellow passengers. They must've thought that they were having a lover's quarrel. Ha, if only it was THAT easy between them.

He had told Emily about it, purposely sugarcoating his version of the "unexpected" kiss. His daughter listened to this issue patiently, but afterwards, she dismissed it with this: "You two still have a long way to go, Daddy. It'll be okay."

Ha,okay was an overstatement, too.

Mulder didn't deny it, because it was true: he missed Scully and her charming Spunk-like attitude, her constant need for his attention and care, her watery blue eyes, and the way she looked at him as if he was the most important man in the world. Even if they were under the same roof, it seemed as if they were living in two separate continents.

"So, do you understand it now, Dana?" Emily's voice came closer from behind him.

"Yes. Thanks." Scully's answer sounded brighter, and he recognized from sheer instinct that she was smiling when she said those words to his daughter. God, he missed the way she smiled, too. She hadn't been smiling at him for weeks now.

"Excuse me, Emily, but I have to fix something in my room."

He heard Emily mutter a pleasant "okay," when Scully walked towards her room across where he was seated and locked the door shut.

Mulder began to furiously skim through the at-least-a-hundred envelopes before him (Mrs. Spender apparently invited ALL five chapters of her garden club), intending to finish it all so he'd be able to ask Emily what she and Scully were talking about.

A clink on the coffee table made him look up. It was Emily. She was placing a plateful of sunflower seeds for him to munch on while going through the invites. Mulder smiled at her appreciatively.

Emily sat down next to Mulder, collecting the handful that he had just finished inspecting.

"How's it going?" she asked, taking a seed from the plate herself.

Mulder also took a few, suddenly feeling the need to stuff his mouth with a lot of seeds. He controlled himself though – he didn't want to dirty up the pretty invitations. "Fine, really. Fine."

"Fine like hell?" Emily supplied, making both of them laugh. "I'm sorry, Daddy... Mom promised she'll do this, but it seems like she's not available for today. You know her ..."

"Yeah, she's busy, that's why we don't really count on her, right?"

Emily sighed disappointedly, resting her head on Mulder's shoulder. It was true: after the divorce, Diana had not really been around to spend time with Emily. Mulder always wondered why, for when they separated, he thought that there were no hard feelings between them and that they together would work to raise Emily. Unfortunately, Diana had other plans and he had no other choice but to respect that.

The wedding was the closest thing Emily could ever have as a chance to bond with her mother. Mulder's only logical conclusion was that after all those years, Diana was still hurting with the fact that Emily had chosen his custody over hers – but what did she expect? Emily had always been Daddy's girl.

His daughter began to go through the invitations herself, "How's it going with Dana?"

The quick change in subject didn't surprise Mulder. The topic of his ex-wife had never really been high on their collective list of favorite topics, but this new subject she presented wasn't exactly what he had in mind, either.

"Uhh ... no change." That was ironic: the word change. He had been told over and over again the past few weeks that change wasn't possible, yet it was the only thing happening to him and Scully.

Emily sadly tucked her arm under Mulder's free bicep, still noisily chewing on her seed. "Oh, Daddy ... You know, it'll be fine soon enough. I could see that she cares for you."

Sure. Fine. That was something.

Scully cared for him? This, finally, was an overstatement. He might care for Scully, but her caring for him? That was not possible. The woman needed him, but not care - that wasn't part of the script between them - and he had accepted a long time ago that it would never be. That idea was funny, just as funny as this conversation. Really, Emily should stop humoring him. He had enough humor from these floral-scented invitations.

A sunflower seed cracked in his mouth. "Em, honey, you shouldn't worry about us. You're getting married in a week and I want you to be focused on that alone."

"But I'm your daughter, and your business is my business."

Mulder grinned widely, despite himself. There were a billion of reasons why he loved his daughter - and her being so considerate was one of them.

In silence, they picked through the invitations once again. Mulder was reading the contents of one particular invitation when something caught his eye. He ran his eyes over the invitation at least enough times for him to make sure that it was addressed to whom he thought it was for.

That confirmed, he shakily waved the damn thing in the air, towards Emily.

"Emily, you are not inviting your Aunt Samantha, are you?"

His daughter stared back at him with innocent hazel eyes that were a mirror image of his own.

"Why? Is that illegal?" she said, with pure confidence stroking her ego. Mulder groaned heavily, rubbing his temples in reflex. His own daughter was using his own words against him. Open mouth, insert whole leg in.

This couldn't - plain COULDN'T- be happening!

"Honey, you know that I ... we are not in good terms with Samantha," he argued steadily, holding his point out on his own battle cry. Emily hesitated, and then charged with a more impressive battle cry than his.

"Aunt Sam is still your sister, Daddy. And she promised me that she'll come to my wedding day." A proud grin betrayed his daughter's pleadings, and immediately, Mulder knew that Samantha would be invited to the wedding. The image of his sister crept like a leech in Mulder's active mind, and he had to bite a sunflower seed hard to push it away.

"When did she give that particular promise again, Em?" He didn't mean to put a disgusted emphasis on the pronoun she.

She scraped her gently elbow against her Dad's rib cage. "When I was 9, she told me that we'll do like Barbie's wedding and she'll be there to witness it all."

Mulder wanted to shake his head in disagreement - but didn't. Not when Emily looked as if she really believed what Samantha told her. Another sunflower seed cracked in between his teeth. "If that's so, how the hell are you going to reach your Aunt?"

His daughter remained expressionless as she processed that question.

Mulder didn't really have a big grudge towards his one and only sister - a particular statement that he had tried to defend over the years that his relationship with her was discussed. He didn't despise her the way he despised Alex Kryceck, but what she had done to their family would always be carved somewhere in Mulder's soul.

For the first good years of his life, Fox William Mulder lived in a suburban paradise, complete with many properties under his own name (all ready for his adulthood) - a wonderful mother and father to vouch for that, and a popularity level in high school that would rival any jock's. Life was perfect, or so he believed - until the day that he was processing his college application to Harvard, Samantha (then fifteen) came home with the biggest surprise of all. And that surprise came in the presence of policemen swarming their suburban paradise.

Apparently, Samantha had been involved in drug trafficking somewhere in downtown Massachusetts. True enough, they found enormous packs of marijuana, cocaine, and heroine hidden underneath her bed mattress inside her bedroom. Their mother fainted right then and their father trying to revive his wife on the spot. Mulder looked on, shell-shocked and unable to process what was going on.

Needless to say, after Samantha's arrest for juvenile prison, the Mulders had to move to a whole new state to escape the growing antagonism and malicious rumors from the community they once loved.

Mulder could've forgiven Samantha if that was the only case.

But William Mulder, Sr., his father, died shortly after the chaos. Samantha's former "comrades" hunted his father down as an act of revenge against her sister. They blamed the annihilation of their drug ring to her stupidity, and it was Mr. Mulder who they found that day. They clubbed him to death, until his blood literally coated the sidewalk where he died.

Mulder always believed that if Samantha hadn't screwed her life up too early, if she just didn't rebel against the perfection of their family … then these events would never have happened.

Since then, his life was never the same.

He escaped this in turn by partying and smoking pot with John, eventually ending into another horrifying twist of fate - his marriage with Diana, and eventually, the best blessing he could ever have: Emily.

Samantha had been released from jail when Emily was 8 and he took her back in his own house (he still lived in downtown Los Angeles back then with Diana). But with the life his sister had chosen, it was understood that she would always be on the move.

So she ran against time, avoiding the world, hiding from her "comrades." When a rock broke Mulder's window back then with the words "BITCH WE'LL GET YOU" inscribed on it, he knew that Samantha would be running once again. And that was what she did.

As for him, he had to move to Beverly Hills - a more upscale neighborhood where he could protect his own daughter.

No one should ever ask him why he had this so-called hatred for Samantha. NO ONE should ever do, if they wanted their faces intact for tomorrow.

He and his daughter basked in complete comfortable silence for minutes, until Emily spoke up, drinking from his glass of strawberry juice. "Dad, I have to tell you a small something, by the way, and Jeff is going to come and pick me up any minute now."

He ignored the insistent desire to ask her why the hell "Jeff" kept picking her up every damn day when they'd be spending the rest of their lives together, anyway. "Yeah, what's that?" Mulder opened an envelope that had the name of "Dana Katherine Scully" on it. He couldn't help but smile as he studied the invitation. Emily had told him of her desire to invite Scully, and he said that he'd do the honors, but Em also wanted it to be formal - even if they were temporarily living under one roof. She wanted an invitation to go with the personal invite. Go figure.

"I'd be leaving this house in two weeks, and there are still other matters to be settled ... like that continued deposit of $5000 in your account."

"The asshole's still depositing, honey?"

"Yes - and the bank's more discreet than ever. They did suggest that it most probably would be from one of your many investments - or one of Grandpa's investments. You should ask Grandma after the wedding," she suggested, still avoiding the real topic she wanted to discuss. Mulder noticed this as he was tucking Scully's invitation back into its envelope.

"What do you want to tell me?"

Emily shifted slightly in her seat, crossing one leg over the other. Her knee- length skirt rode up to her thigh, and Mulder pushed it back down to its correct length with dismay. As a father, he was not at all strict when it came to clothes, but he was worried about Jeff getting an impromptu peep show. She laughed at his over-protectiveness, continuing, "I taught Dana everything about your finances - how to do your expense reports, your bank accounts, your ..."

Those words didn't register fairly well in Mulder's radar. He was still picking at the envelopes when it hit him.

"... Your credit cards, transactions, etcetera." Emily beamed at him sweetly.

"Emily," Mulder digested the course of panic throbbing within his heart. This wasn't really

happening was it? This was just an unfortunate dream and he would wake up in that apartment in Las Vegas in his OWN bed, ALONE and that damn kiss didn't happen, and Samantha's not coming to the wedding, and Emily didn't do something that he would forever regret.

"Emily," he repeated, not caring if she heard the desperate and anxious rasp in his voice. He groped for more sunflower seeds and tasted the saltiness. "Please tell me that you're lying."

"I don't lie to you, Dad."

That's his life's biggest problem: too many people telling him the truth.

"Honey," he said, facing her and keeping his voice down. "You know our situation here - Dana and I aren't in good terms ... and I don't want anything else to complicate this issue between us."

"It's not going to complicate it, Dad," Emily defended, her voice rising. "Dana's what you need right now that I'm going away. We both know that you cannot manage paperwork well, especially with this directing debut that's just around the corner. She'll be here for a long time and she could help you."

"Emily ... not that I doubt you or your idea, and not that I don't trust Dana ... however, my passwords …"

"Passwords are still for your knowledge alone. I didn't give her the golden key to your files, Dad. I just taught her to do the basic paperwork. The important files in your bank accounts are your responsibility. That's something I'm going to teach you." Seeing that Mulder quieted down,

Emily continued, "Dana's the only one in this house who's not busy and who's smart enough to get a good track of what you're doing. She's the only one I could think of."

It was some time before Mulder replied. Finishing the invitations, Mulder stacked them in neat rows and columns that would make Scully proud.

"Fine. It's okay, I hope that she doesn't include in the expense reports the cost of my monthly subscription for Playboy Magazine," he joked, and Emily laughed heartily.

Deep inside of him, he knew that if Scully would've gotten that idea, she'd go ahead and do it.

She would always surprise him - a thing that he had taken for granted when he took her into his own home.

A car honked from outside of his Manor, alerting Emily. She gave him a quick peck on the cheek; her laughter subsiding to sudden giddiness that Mulder didn't think he liked at all. He let her go with no more words, though, and she bounded off to meet with her knight in shining armor.

Or knight in a shining Ford, all spruced up to meet his very own Queen.

Mulder felt like a peeping tom at the moment, lingering outside Scully's bedroom, watching her soft deliberate movements as she concentrated on a black and white magazine laid out before her. Her whole body was propped up on the soft cushion of her single bed and was surrounded by white papers that could either be his finance reports or random pages of their script that she wanted to pay particular attention to. Ever since the script landed in her hands, she had been running around with it: citing quotes, passages, and re-enacting special moments which she thought deserved her extra attention. Back in Las Vegas, in their dingy two- person apartment, Scully even allowed him to participate in some scenes that had dialogues. He would sit back on the couch while she delivered or acted out some lines that she believed Mulder could coach. Occasionally, he would also read the lines of other characters in different voices, which would make them both laugh afterwards.

Scully was a good actress - not the best (yet) - but good enough for the movie, and with his directing, he knew that she could be better. She was also a very driven woman - she wanted to seize every opportunity before her and when she did, she gave it her absolute best.

Kill him now, Mulder's inner thoughts hissed. Kill him now, because he missed the girl terribly.

The exact reason he was standing outside her doorway, as if on a prowl and peering through the small slits of the jarred door, was because of the small pill he held in one hand and the glass of cold water in the other. It was time to drink her medicine: the ferrous sulfate or iron tablets. He was afraid that she had been neglecting her health lately, since he had no idea whether she was drinking the iron pills or eating the liver cuisine Mulder asked Jenny to make. They had been avoiding each other like a plague in his own house, which made him berate himself even more for his stupidity back in Vegas.

Not that he doubted her responsibility over her own condition - she did study medicine for a year in university - however, Mulder took pride in taking care of a responsible woman. And this pride was beckoning him that exact moment and he wanted to aid it.

Using all of his remaining strength, he knocked softly on the door, pushing it even more ajar for him to see all of her.

Scully lifted her head from the magazine, her eyes widening in what he could call as delayed shock when she saw that it was him. She made a move to stand up and appear more presentable (not that it mattered - her baggy jeans and cut- off shirt were okay for Mulder), which resulted in a tidal wave of papers onto the floor. She apparently forgot that she was lying down beside a stack of papers.

Mulder shut his eyes momentarily in dread, fearing that Scully would shove him out or order him outside with her usual Spunk bark.

Swallowing that thought and the saliva that suddenly became unpleasant at the back of his throat, he encouraged himself to step into the room and loom over her as she tried to pick up the mess she had made. Typical Scully: she would rather fix the clutter first before ask him what the hell he was doing in her room.

"Uh, Scully?" his voice croaked. His own sound seemed foreign to him.

The effects of this woman on him were incredulous. There was now a large toad in his throat and its staying there with its squiggly arms crossed in non-cooperation.

Her ponytail bobbed up and down, a signal that she was listening to him. Her deathly pale white fingers worriedly piled up the pieces of paper with ignition, pausing only once or twice to see if they were sorted correctly.

If the effects of Scully on him were incredulous, he hoped that this was his effect on her. It should be, just so that the universe is fair to both of them.

"I brought you your medicine."

She didn't seem to hear him. She continued stacking the papers, tapping them on the ground to align them and pushing them aside as she made another pile.

Mulder sighed heavily, causing her to stop for a minute, and then moving on when he decided to place the pill and glass of water atop at the vanity table across her bed.

It was the best move he could think of - or that his mind allowed him to think of- because he crouched down beside her before he could even talk himself out of it and started helping her pick those damn papers up.

He was at his fourth piece of paper when Scully shot him a look that spelled "death" clearer than the day. Mulder doubled over, swallowing as she maintained that look. She held it until he handed her the papers, which she grabbed with rough rustling, and until he rose to his feet.

He wasn't going to give up that easily, of course. Sans courage.

Sitting back down on her bed, he stole a glance at the magazine she was reading. The seemingly crappy edition opened carelessly at an article that says: "The fight to immune ourselves from the AIDS plague."

She REALLY was interested in medicine.

Flipping through the thing, he saw that the magazine was from one of those free publishing companies that come up with small magazine- like pamphlets which people hand out in subways and streets to passers-by. These were the kind of magazines that big companies reject because their materials were either too alarmist or too candid for the mass public.

Naturally, it would attract Scully like a moth to a flame. Her pamphlet was particularly entitled as "Medicine's Epidemic: A candid portrayal of AIDS' real threat to the public."

By the time he was cradling the medicine newsletter in his arms, running through the pages with piqued interest, Scully was done fixing her papers and she had them in order once again on the bed, a few meters beside him.

She stood there for minutes, until he caught her looking at him.

"Oh, umm..." He dropped the magazine on his side. "It's interesting stuff."

Scully sighed, sauntering over to where he disposed of her water and medicine. Without any words, she inhaled the damn tablet and finished drinking the water.

Mulder, desperate for a conversation (old habits die hard, especially when you have been conversing ONLY with this particular woman every single day for two months), snatched the magazine once again and opened it to the aforementioned article.

"What do you know about this AIDS disease?"

Scully tapped the empty glass in her free hand, casually bending over so that she could rest her ass on the vanity table. "Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, Mulder, if you do not know what the abbreviation stands for. It is not a disease - these are diseases that that are from the suppression of the immune system when it is infected with HIV, or Human Immunodeficiency Virus." She sighed yet again, putting down the glass beside her, continuing her talk, "An HIV- infected person does not necessarily mean instant death - it could take years before the person would suffer with a sickness like Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia or commonly known in layman's term as PCP. But as I've said, these are diseases, so the infected person could also be diagnosed with tuberculosis and bacterial pneumonia. Weight loss, diarrhea, paleness, fever are symptoms of the advanced stages of the AIDS virus. Fungal infections are also not common."

Wow.

Mulder shook his head in disbelief, taking it all in. The facts she had been mouthing at him were all easy to process –what was hard to process was the weight of Scully's brain cells. She was actually very, very, very smart. Maybe if she had finished university, she would've graduated with top honors -like him. If they were in the same school, they would've been in stiff competition, calling each other names and racing to their professors to get the highest grades.

Wow. You really know YOUR stuff, Dana.

He would've said that if they were in competition.

Mulder cleared his throat, gathering every single piece of information he could remember from his early morning listening to Don Imus' on WNBC. That was not much, actually, since the broadcaster was keener on the jokes than on the facts itself. Eddie Murphy wasn't much help either.

He had admitted it a long time ago: spending most of his time in the superficial reality of Hollywood dampened his knowledge. There was not much around in Hollywood to use your brain for, actually. You made decisions based on actions, practicality, politics, marketability – and only occasionally what you went by in school.

"The AIDS virus has only affected a large sum of the gay community. There hadn't really been any big news about it affecting anyone who's straight or who's monogamous. Why make such a big fuss about it?" Yes, the subject was new to him. The said outbreak only occurred in 1980, and there wasn't much to be said. Five years later, there still seemed to be nothing much to be said about it at all.

Scully chewed on her lower lip carefully. "What you are citing is medical homophobia. I understand that the statistics suggest that only the gay community is being affected; however, this disease could also be transmitted through blood donations, sexual relationships with prostitutes who had once pleasured anyone with the HIV virus -the possibilities about this epidemic are endless, Mulder. It is a worldwide concern. The homosexuals shouldn't be the only people in this fight. We are with them in on this. We should fight this with them, especially with the growing rate of young children being affected too."

What impressed him the most about Scully was his knowledge that she was Catholic - she believed in the teaching of the church reverently and wore a golden cross on a chain around her neck most of the time to probably prove it - but she never would go to church itself or to a mass. It was as if she had given up on prayer and decided that she'd take care of her own fate.

He would've called her a lapsed Catholic if only she didn't keep wearing that necklace.

"I realized that, that children could also be affected by this AIDS through their parents - if they

were HIV positive, most probably their children would also be. I realized that this thing does not only affect gays... but," he stopped, and then changed his course out of pure, innocent curiosity.

"What is the possibility that someone like myself would be affected?"

Scully's lips suddenly turned upward, curling into a delicious smile. Mulder reacted with one himself, missing everything about their arguments: the mind- blowing heated conversations, the rapid pitching of one- liners, occasional fights in between, then the encore as a peel of laughter or smiles from one another.

"Hmm... let's see, you don't go out for hookers when you get lonely, do you?"

Mulder mouthed an exaggerated no.

"You haven't fooled with anyone of any sex in the past few months, have you?"

He smirked and shook his head.

"Blood donations? Transfusions lately in the past five or seven years?"

"You're the only person I know who had a transfusion in the past five or seven years."

She suddenly paled with what he said and Mulder had the panicky urgency to take back what he said. Open mouth insert whole body. Strike one hundred for Mr. Fox William Mulder!

"Christ, I'm sorry, Scully - the Saint Cecilia hospital is a respectable medicine facility. And they test blood donors nowadays for the virus …"

Her blue eyes were wide and bright as she tried hard to pinch some color into her cheeks. Mulder stared at her in guilt. She was already pale enough to defunct paper; he couldn't imagine how she could've gone paler without destroying her melanin.

Fantastic. Mr. Fox William Mulder could sure fix everything.

Finally getting some color back to her cheeks, Scully breathed in deeply, "What do you need from me, Mulder?"

Damn it! He blew it!

"I..." He remembered the invitation (thank you, Emily) and searched his front pockets for the envelope. Finding it, he left the bed to give it to her.

"Emily wants you to come to the wedding. It will mean a lot to her."

Scully opened her palm and Mulder gently rested the invitation on it. She held it with two hands and studied her name on the beige paper.

She wasn't going to say anything soon, so Mulder had the initiative to keep the conversation

going. "I don't expect you to come, even if it would mean the world to my daughter ... but ..."

He was halted abruptly when fine spots of red began to appear on the invitation.

"Scully?" he said, and she at once snapped her head up, her eyes up at the ceiling.

A drop of blood trickled down from her nose, resting on her lip. She pinched the bridge of her nose vehemently, trying to contain the nose bleed before it got worse. Mulder took some tissue near him, handed her some, and began to wipe the blood off her face. He tentatively removed the invitation from her hand and settled it on the table near them. For some unknown reason, she was pushing herself further away from him as he cleaned her up, frightening Mulder with the idea that she might fall backwards, so he grabbed her by the waist and effectively pinned her to him.

Feeling this contact, Scully bowed her head down to inspect it - only to bring more drops of blood on her blouse and some on his shirt. He tipped her chin to bring her head back up.

"Relax, relax," he murmured, wiping away the fresh droplets of blood on her shirt and on his, too. Scully slackened against his form, breathing steadily as they both waited for the nose bleed to stop.

She tipped her head back down, an indication that it had stopped. Mulder released her reluctantly, wishing that he could do more to help her. But of course, she wouldn't let him.

"I'm sort of getting used to it, the blood and everything about it." She checked on her blood-splattered shirt and on his, mumbling a small "sorry." Mulder waved as a gesture that it was okay. It was more than okay to have her blood all over him - Jesus, she could have her whole lunch on his shirt and he wouldn't mind because it will give him more excuses to take care of her.

"I'll see," she said, out of subject. Mulder tilted his head to his left, not really sure what she was talking about. "The wedding. I'll see," she cleared.

Mulder was able to nod. "I hope you would come. I know you don't want to go because I'd be there -" Scully opened her mouth to protest, but he held a finger up to shut her up. "- And living every day with me is bad enough, but please come for Emily. She truly adores you."

Her eyes skittered to the invitation and back to him.

"I won't even talk to you during the ceremony or reception, if that's what you are worried about. Just, please come."

She wouldn't answer him; strangely, it made him feel better that she did refuse to answer him. So, he didn't wait for one. Mulder reached beside her for the empty glass of water and exited her bedroom, closing the door softly behind him.

Dinner that evening flew by without much words, other than "please pass the ketchup" or "hand me that pitcher, please." He was hearing too much politeness for the whole day that he was about to burst like a fucking balloon. Scully kept avoiding his eyes – or his whole form, for that matter. She kept her eyes on her plate of fascinating string beans and medium rare burger patties, as if he was an invisible man. He felt invisible himself with the way she had been treating him, too.

Scully politely asked Jenny if she could wash the dishes for that evening and the maid reluctantly relented to her offer after much coaxing from the auburn lady. Mulder knew that she was only offering to do the chore to avoid his presence outside of the dining room. Emily was still out with her prince charming, which meant that no one would be there to break the tension between them this time around.

Quietly, Mulder crept up behind Scully with a lumpy towel in one hand, ready to help out with the dishes. He positioned himself beside Scully, accepting the wet pieces of porcelain that she was handing him. She didn't even question his presence and he understood that she didn't want to talk about this new arrangement he was testing out with her.

That was about the time when Jenny grimaced at the two and headed to her own quarters, frustrated. Crazy people, she must've been thinking, hiring helpers and doing the job themselves.

He cleared his throat before he spoke, "I'm sorry about what I said ... about the blood transfusions this afternoon."

She swallowed hard, submerging a plate within the lukewarm dishwater. "S'okay, Mulder. I wasn't offended."

Yeah, right. He'd gladly believe that if she didn't turn ten shades paler when he mentioned that damn statement. "No, really, I didn't mean to imply that you -"

"Mulder, please, it's okay. I'm fine. I was just taken aback, I guess."

Taken aback? More like shocked to death. "Scully... I know I'm not making our situation any better ... at least," she handed him the forks and spoons, which he took without hesitation. He gazed at her pouting red lips, hoping that she would at least look at him so that he could read whatever was going on in her mind, "let me try to make it better. We are eventually going to be spending a whole year together. If this is the way we would be treating each other for the rest of the time duration, then maybe I should ..." he trailed off. He didn't want to go on and present that thought out in the world.

She squeezed the lemon-scented dish soap onto the sponge she was holding, in turn squeezing it in her hand to make bubbles - or to release tension. "I told you I'm fine. Please, can't you just -" Another squeeze on the sponge. Tighter, this time. "Quit? Is quitting so hard for you to do?"

He should be offended since had often denied that being a lousy quitter was his middle name, but he was already told thousands of times about how hard he pushed through that it didn't matter to him anymore.

"Yes, it is, especially when the other end is making it very challenging for me." That was the truth. Mulder honestly didn't understand why the hell Scully was giving him the hardest time over a small - well, not really small - matter. He wished that there was some way for him to pull her strings effectively so that she could utter the answers he longed for out.

Scully ran the sponge over a plate, stopping every once in a while to contemplate what he said. "I need some time to think. To clear my head. I told you before that it doesn't change anything, I am still -"

"Yes, you are still mine. Yes, it supposedly doesn't change anything - but Scully, the only thing happening to us IS change. Do you understand that?"

She turned off the faucet with a tight grip, pushing over to him the last of the dishes. He cradled the plates with his two hands, wishing once again that she would at least look at him. At least, JUST look at him so he could see what was bothering her.

Scully sighed heavily, redirecting her head to the opposite direction.

"Yes, I do. I understand the situation clear as day. What I don't understand is why you had to do it. Why you had to..." Another deep breath. "I'm sorry," she was able to insert, before completely turning her back to him and heading towards her room.

Her door closed with a loud bang. Mulder had to hold onto the dishes tightly or else he would've lost his grip on them when she took that first step away from him.

END OF CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Spunk Update: Since a student of mine "stalked" my old fanfics and the other archives of this story, I discovered that I only posted up until Chapter Ten of Spunk BOOK II online. In my file, I have up until Chapter Thirteen and a bit of the Epilogue. We're almost done with BOOK I so I'm very excited to share these unpublished pages (at least sixty of them) with you … before I start writing the next few parts. The outline's done – I just need the rest of the summer to sit it out and write it down once and for all!

And thank you for all the feedback so far. Yes, you bet your guns that I'm going to finally finish this story!