So he takes the chicken and vegetables out to the grill, and he manages not to peck her temple on the way out. This feels so much like how things were - how they're supposed to be - that part of him wants to slip all the way into it. Like a warm bath, like finally falling asleep after being awake for a day and a half.

But, he can't stop thinking, eventually the other shoe will drop. What happens when the magic wears off? At some point, he has to stop making "entertain a Scully in her thirties" his only task, and then...then, he doesn't know. He has no leads, no work, and no faith in his ability to turn up more of either of those things. All he really has are obsessions, and even if Scully's one of them, that's not enough to survive on.

He doesn't want to think about it. He wants this mood, this late-summer evening, to be the rest of his life. And it's not going to be, and he has no idea how to handle that fact.

The grill, at least, is straightforward, and once it's heating up, he comes back into the house to find a bottle of wine. It's too much, too intimate, but it's also how they used to do this - and he wants her to have the full country-living experience. Someday, she'll remember a future that hasn't happened, and she'll understand why he wants the things he does. "How do you feel about room-temperature rosé?"