A/N: Woohoo! Still going! Of course, this is chapter 4 of 5 mostly complete chapters. Once we finish 5, it's going to get dicey. Anyway, next installment, 11/1! As always, please drop me a review!

IV - A Drinking Game

We split the last bit of wine and made quick work of the kitchen. It felt so domestic, her handing me plates to load in the dishwasher, me scooping lasagna leftovers into a container only to be chastised for not packing some to take home. And somehow, I didn't leave after, but instead found myself sitting with her on the couch, talking about inconsequential things until nearly 10.

Just as the conversation began to peter out and I thought of going home, she got up and headed to the kitchen, somewhat abruptly. "I need a beer," she said, which seemed odd, given the hour and having already polished off a couple glasses of wine over the course of the evening, along with a beer that afternoon. "Can I get you one?"

"None for me. I should probably head out."

She didn't respond to my comment and returned to the couch, drink in hand. "Do you mind if we talk about the elephant in the room?"

I broke out into a cold sweat as I began to understand why she was trying to ply me with more alcohol now. "Which is?"

"You asked me out. Or at least that's how I interpreted it."

"I did." My mouth felt dry, and I motioned for Monica's bottle, which she handed to me with a side of I tried to warn you.

"That's a pretty big step."

"Trust me, I know," I said, taking another longer swig and handing it back to her.

She sat there studying me, and I felt every ounce of my self confidence drain out of my body.

"Did I screw up?" I asked in a sudden panic, wishing I had not returned the bottle.

"No, no, not at all," she replied quickly. "I only wanted to… confirm."

"We're still on for tomorrow then?"

"I'm looking forward to it, John. But… I need to lay down some ground rules, if that's alright." She put the bottle to her lips again, her need for liquid courage making me more nervous.

Well, this is a first, I thought. "Ok, what did you have in mind?"

I watched her take another long drink before putting the bottle down on the coffee table, equidistant from us. "You know all about my relationship with Brad," she began, and I know my face said more than I'd have liked it to say.

"I feel like I know enough."

"It was just bad and toxic from the beginning. I mean, he was my superior."

"I know. Honestly, it was hard to watch sometimes." I was grateful that the bottle was in arm's reach because right now, I wasn't in the mood to talk about her ex any more than she was.

"You and I are equals, so no worrying about breaking protocol this time. But," she started to say, chewing on her lip and looking off to the side as she deliberated on whether to continue. "Sometimes our office affair was very much an office affair," she said with great innuendo. Her eyes darted up after she spoke, and I felt she looked afraid of my reaction.

"Oh." It didn't surprise me, somehow, but I wasn't sure what all I was supposed to make of that. "Wait, you don't think I'm gunning for that, do you?"

"No, of course not. But I just felt like it would be good to have some guardrails."

"Such as?"

"Maintaining as firm a division as we can make between work and…" she paused, waving her hand in the air between us, and I understood that she wasn't sure what to call it, my asking her out.

"Dating?" For some reason the word hung heavy in the air, far more substantial than dinner, and my palms were suddenly sweaty. I passed the bottle to her, feeling like she might actually need it as much as me, and she readily took another sip before returning it.

She nodded. "Just… if we're on the clock, we should keep it professional. When we're at work, we're coworkers, nothing more."

"Of course. Is that all?"

"Maybe we could tell Skinner? And then whatever we need to do to properly inform the Bureau. I don't ever want to be in that position again, keeping secrets about a work relationship."

"All above board," I promised, despite the fear I felt thinking about making everything so official.

"You don't think they'll split us up, do you?"

"Dunno. Never had a thing for a coworker before, so I've never had a reason to think about it."

She gave me a look that said she couldn't believe I'd never fallen for someone at work, then took the beer bottle again, now mostly empty, not drinking, but clearly with something still on her mind.

"Is there something else?"

"No, I was just thinking."

Ok, so she was going to make me drag this out of her, something that I wasn't even sure I wanted to hear. "About what?"

She didn't respond for the longest time, leading me to believe that whatever it was had to be monumental. "I think I've had too much to drink.. Or maybe not enough."

My nerves were frayed by this point and all I could do was laugh. "That's what you were thinking about?"

She met my eyes, trying to decide if she could tell me what was really on her mind. Instead she got up again, taking the bottle with her. I heard the fridge open and close, then the sound of a bottle cap clinking on the counter. But she didn't return for a solid minute, long enough to twist my insides into knots all over again and wonder if I should go after her. When she returned to the couch, the new beer was already missing some of its contents. I noticed her hand was trembling slightly.

"I don't want to mess this up, John," she said, with eyes that looked both sad and scared. "It's too important to me."

"Mess what up?"

"Us."

"Oh." I motioned for the bottle, and she helped herself before handing it over. "Why do you think you're going to mess it up? If anyone's going to mess up, it'll be me. I'm the one with the bad track record. Don't see a divorce hanging over your head."

"I know I gave you front row seats to the disaster that was Brad Follmer. But... I've had so many other bad relationships that I kept from you. I feel like relationship kryptonite."

"Monica, we all have histories like that."

Moving closer, she grabbed the bottle and, with a strangely challenging look in her eyes, continued. "I had an affair with a married woman, right after I moved to New Orleans. It was stupid. I was on the rebound, apparently determined to self-destruct," she admitted with another drink.

I shrugged it off, and took the bottle again, "I slept with someone the day Barbara asked for the divorce." Incredulity and disbelief filled her face, and I followed up with a drink. "See. We've all done stupid shit."

She yanked the bottle from my hand. "I stayed with a guy for two years who outright told me he didn't want anything serious with me, even when I know I can't always handle no-strings-attached situations. He cheated on me constantly, because he didn't think of it as cheating, and I took him back every time." When she drank, she eyed me the whole time, and I realized we were now having some sort of bizarre competition.

"Well I'm not sure I remember what a strings-attached relationship is, it's been so long." I reached over and claimed the bottle as though I'd won with such a weak comeback, but she wasn't going to accept defeat.

"Once in college, I was too afraid to break up with my girlfriend, so I just went home for the summer and refused to take her calls." Another drink, though she promptly returned it to me, inviting me to take my turn.

I had to think a minute to try and come up with something, and I could tell with each passing second, I was losing this bizarre contest. "OK, girl I dated just before I met Barbara. We'd agreed to keep it casual, even though we'd been hooking up for a couple months. But we were having dinner with some guys from my unit and she referred to me as her boyfriend. She corrected herself right away, but I still decided to play the asshole card and tell her later that night in bed that I wanted to be clear we were not a couple. She kicked me out right then and there, and I never saw her again." My turn for a guzzle.

The bottle was back on her lips now. "I've had way too many one-night stands. More than I can count on both hands," she said, giving the beer back to me.

"Every single woman I've slept with in the last seven, eight years has been a one-night stand. And there were a lot of women for a while. More than I could count, no matter how many hands I had on… hand." I drained the bottle and set it down a bit too definitively on the coffee table, putting an end to the competition. I hadn't meant to ever share any of that with her, but there it was, all the skeletons in my closet.

"We're both shitty, flawed people, ok? Some of us more than others. You wanna try and race me to the bottom, you're not gonna win. I've been to rock bottom. And for some reason you still seem to think the world of me. Well, you did. Probably just blew that out of the water."

Her eyes were studying my face, and I knew she'd need time to take all that in, so I leaned back into the couch, wondering if I really had just sabotaged this whole thing before it even started.

"You're more complicated than I thought," she finally admitted.

"That sounds bad."

She shook her head slowly, still scrutinizing me. "No. It sounds human."

"Look, I don't want to screw this up any more than you, and I'll be damned if I'm going to add you to a list of one-night stands, or any other stupid list caused by me fucking things up. I don't feel like I'm scraping the barrel in terms of dumb decisions any longer. I …" I was getting caught up in everything and was about five seconds from declaring my love for her, which I thought I'd better hold on to for a while longer, so I forced myself to take a breath before I continued. "I wanna take my time with this. I wanna make sure I don't fuck it up. Because I feel like there's potential here, and I worry that if we rush into anything, we'll ruin it. So how about I add to those ground rules of yours. We take it slow. We communicate. We push ourselves to do better."

"I like that."

"You know, the smartest thing I ever did in my life was bring you in on the X-Files."

"I'm glad you did." She draped her arm along the back of the couch, reaching out her hand to me, which I took because I'm a fool only 99% of the time. Her hand felt warm and real in mine, and I couldn't resist giving it a little squeeze, which she reciprocated, adding in a smile of gratitude. The heavy stuff out of the way, we chatted for some time, as we often did, about everything and nothing. In time, she rested her head on her arm, looking like it was well past her bedtime, and. I glanced at my watch. How another hour had passed, I wasn't sure.

"Damn, it's late," I said, standing up abruptly. "I gotta let you get some sleep."

She walked me to the door, but didn't open it. "Is it strange that all those things you told me about only make me think more highly of you?"

"I feel like all I did was prove wrong everything you thought of me before. What you said to me back in March, right before your accident, that wasn't true. It was nice and all, but I feel if we're going to give this a try, then you deserve to know the real me."

"John, I've always seen the real you." She was so close to me, closer than necessary, and she leaned in just enough to make it clear that she wanted me to kiss her.

God dammit, I thought. I'm going to have to kiss her. But I was stuck. Paralyzed. Her hand reached out and touched my arm, fingertips resting so gently on my arm, and it was enough to push me into action. I moved in a little, cautiously halting before the distance made a kiss inevitable, but close enough that my intentions could not be confused. She smiled and gave an almost imperceptible nod of her head, and I found myself following through, past all of my fears of missing her lips or being a poor kisser or disappointing her in some other way. I simply had to feel her lips on mine.

It was quick. Not much more than a peck, and when I pulled away, her eyes were still closed and a beautiful calmness had settled over her features. Opening her eyes slowly, I was pulled into her gaze with a force which frightened me and simultaneously made me want to do nothing more than take her right then and there. So I threw out a goodnight and made my exit.