"Don't forget the raccoons." His thumb presses idly into the back of her hand, a little pulse as he imagines it. Screaming wildlife at dawn, and Scully next to him, burying her face in his chest while she groans about the very concept of woodpeckers, and he says something crass about how she hadn't minded wood or peckers last night.
(Focus, Fox.)
More importantly: the in-between, everything that happens before they get to some waterlogged cabin in the depths of Vermont. And here's Scully, who hasn't had a bad hair day since 1995, coming in clutch with both good ideas and kissable faces. (He doesn't kiss her. He just wants to.) "Sure. We can put some CAUTION tape up."
And yet here he is, sitting here a moment too long. Neither the coffee-scented bustle nor Scully's hand are things he wants to let go of. When he does, reluctantly, it's to shove his phone in his pocket and start walking out toward his car.
"Your place was nice," he says, as he's buckling up. "I liked the little, uh, water thing."
Something is definitely wrong with her, because the idea of a night camping in the woods with rabid wildlife and too much rain and Fox Mulder sounds brilliant, even though in her experience that usually ends up with a quarantine or a hospital stay or a barely-averted apocalypse. She takes a moment longer than he does to say one more polite goodbye to their waitress, tuck her phone away, and ask herself one last time whether it matters if this is a good idea.
Packing a bag, after all, implies a stay. A nebulous amount of time spent cohabiting with the man she left, a man she's arguably dating. Since they started working together, she's been endlessly careful not to give him the wrong impression-- as though there were some right impression to give.
And she could make some practical excuse, that it's ridiculous to spend money on a hotel when she's got other options, that he's just doing her a favor and there's plenty of room in the house-- she could sleep on the couch-- but she's not going to, and she's too tired to argue herself out of taking him up on the offer.
"It's a nice place," she agrees. "Though I'm rethinking how much glass there is. I'd offer to give you the nickel tour, but."
"I'll do a walkaround while you pack," he offers. "Self-guided."
There are questions sitting heavily on the console between them. Chief among them, at least for Mulder, is Why is this the first time I've seen it? On an intellectual level, he can appreciate the need for a sanctum sanctorum, particularly where Dana Scully is concerned - but it turns out her holiest of holy places has all the warmth and personality of a well-kept Airbnb. It's nothing like the home they shared, and nothing like the apartment she kept before that.
Some of it, no doubt, is the fact that nothing in the world today looks like the apartment of a thirtysomething circa 1995. The world contains far fewer sprays of dried flowers and matchy-matchy window valances than it used to. But in the brief time he was there - and in fairness, he'd had other things on his mind - he'd seen nothing that said Scully to him.
(On the other hand - had their home ever said Scully? Or had it just been Mulder, to greater or lesser extent in any given room?)
He's known her for decades, and there are still times when he remembers that however much he knows, there are parts of her that he's never caught more than a glimpse of. Seeing her home, realizing the extent to which her life has gone on without him, has a way of cutting that knowledge into his bones.
Because some part of him learned absolutely nothing from the last twelve hours of his life, he mounts his smartphone in his car and says, clearly and deliberately, "Play The Cure."
The phone does what he asks, and he turns "Friday I'm in Love" down until it's mere background sound for the ride over to Scully's place. No AI instructions, but an AI deejay beats the hell out of listening to an FM station full of ads and tedious deejay commentary.
It's always felt a little strange, having a place Mulder has never seen. But what was she supposed to do? Invite him over for dinner-- I know we broke it off, come see what my life is without you? Impossible. Ridiculous.
(And why is that? Was she worried it would hurt him, to see her move on? Or that it would hurt her, to let him see the way she lived on her own; the perfectly-manicured, high-end place that could have been anyone's.)
She fixes his phone with a wary look, but it fades, eventually; she relaxes against the seat, looking out the window. This, in a way, still feels more familiar than the home they're heading to.
"Is it strange--"
Yes, it's strange; that's the wrong question. It isn't a question. She pauses and tries again. Less tentative. This isn't a hypothetical.
"I had a good time," she says, more softly, looking up at him. "Aside from the part where everything with a battery or plug tried to kill us, I mean."
He glances over at her, just for a second or two - watch the road, Fox - and there's no concealing the hope in his eyes. It can't even be papered over with a sense of self-satisfaction, because it doesn't feel like he had anything to do with last night being fun. It just was, somehow, despite the fact that it was also murderous and infuriating.
(They'll reference it for years to come, if there are years to come. It'll be something that can be drawn up in five words or less - remember the killer sushi place? - and the reason will be almost nothing to do with either of them, once you discount the fact that it's technically Mulder's fault for refusing to tip some robot's puppet masters.)
"I did, too," he tells the SUV in front of them. It's quiet for a moment, aside from Robert Smith and company, and the rumble of wheels on asphalt. And then he risks it. "Best date I've been on in years."
It shouldn't feel so significant to say. They went out with the intention of having a nice time-- a nice date, it was a date-- so why is it strange to admit that they did? (Aside from the barely-averted robot apocalypse.) Twenty years ago she would have blushed. She doesn't now; though she does glance away, gaze unfocused out the window until he adds that bit.
The curiosity it sparks feels prurient; she sneaks a look at him.
They're both adults. It's silly to keep tiptoeing around the years between them. But it still takes her a moment to work up the nerve to ask, partly because she realizes that touching the topic is potentially a jumbo-sized can of worms, and it's not like she can stay at the condo if it goes south.
"....Have you been?"
It's half a question, but Mulder usually knows what she means with less than that to go on. What has he been up to, since she's been gone?
It's an obvious follow-up question, one he definitely should have expected, and he's still surprised. There's a petty, bitter part of him that thinks oh, now you're interested in what I'm doing with myself? - and perhaps it's a triumph of time and therapy that he can recognize that it's the thought of a lonely jackass.
There's a difference between saying, Hey, Scully, let's try this sushi place and Hey, Scully, go on a date with me. There's a fig leaf of respectable friendship on the former, a kind of dating chicken that feels strangely like the old days. And there's a more difference yet between best date I've been on in years and let me tell you about my intense failure of a love life.
"My, uh, head-shrinker," the one he still can't believe he keeps on speed-dial, but here they are, living in the unimaginable future of 2018, "suggested I 'try getting out there again.'"
He doesn't do the finger-quotes, but they're implied in the tone of his voice: As if I was ever 'out there' in the first place. Scully will know. And she'll probably know to wait through a pause while he tries to figure out the least pathetic-sounding way to tell this story, because he'll look like he's still ready to say something, even though he's also changing lanes and making a face at the douchebag-mobile pickup that wouldn't let him in.
"That was - is this the exit? - it was about two years after -" you left me - "everything. I think the last time I actually went on one was a month before Skinner called us."
The problem has never been disinterest. Of course she wondered about him-- and she'd hoped he was doing well. Or at least she'd tried to hope he was doing well, that he was happy; admittedly the thought of him dating was never one she wanted to consider too closely, and even now there's an irrational stab of jealousy she knows she's not entitled to feel. No amount of therapy or mindfulness or Mulder-free orgasms has ever quite managed to quash it.
"That's good," she says, and immediately regrets how patronizing it sounds; she means it earnestly. It's never been good for him to be so alone. (And, yeah, it's her fault in part that he was; she won't deny it. But she couldn't have stayed, if she was only staying so he wouldn't be by himself; that wasn't healthy for either of them, wallowing in the damp, drizzly November of the soul. She'd had to go to sea.)
The strategic move here is to volunteer some information of her own; make him feel heard and offer some vulnerable admission, but on her own terms. Control the narrative, make it sound... however it would best sound, she supposes. Successful and dignified and sanitized, like her currently uninhabitable home.
Instead she lets the silence hang, offering him the chance to pry if he wants to, or to avoid the topic; but she leans towards the center of the car, reaches to set a hand on his arm.
For two years, he'd grieved, and he'd insisted that the idea of dating was pure folly. That no one else would ever appreciate him the way Scully had, that every attempt at human connection felt pointless by comparison, that he was incompatible with the very concept of Tinder. What it had boiled down to, which had taken something like half a year of therapy visits to admit, was the fact that all he really wanted was for Scully to come home. He didn't want to start over. He didn't want to make changes to his life, plan new adventures, meet new people. He just wanted her back.
And even with his therapist - a well-dressed woman fifteen years his junior who took no shit, but politely - gently pointing out that that didn't seem likely, it took another year and a half to accept it. If he ever truly did. They talked about goals and dreams, and he'd even come up with some. See a Knicks game at every NBA arena. Try to write a memoir - not for public consumption, but just so there was a record of his life beyond government files locked in a basement. Make friends to watch baseball with and maybe try eating dinner with someone new. Just see where things go. But he'd never done most of those things. He'd talked about making a fulfilling life and then gone back to his empty house with its newspaper clippings, and the best he'd managed was cooking stir-fry for one, because decent Chinese delivery in Farrs Corner was like asking for a unicorn from Santa Claus.
(They talked about all the usual things, too, Samantha and government secrets and William and Scully. About how their son and their past meant he'd always have a connection to Scully, and how it could be okay if it weren't romantic anymore. About his sister's soul, sparkling out there among the stars, and what he'd want to share from his life with her. How to live a life he'd want to tell her about, if he could.)
Now, with Scully's hand on his, he feels - well, something. Something that doesn't have a good single word to sum it up. Happy and sad all at once, and like he can't ask her about herself unless he says at least one more thing about his misadventures in dating.
"The last one," he says instead, "was a divorced guy from Rhode Island. Two kids, rock climbing instructor. I think he thought I was a lunatic by the time we said good night."
I didn't get to a third date with anyone. Either he was too crazy for them, or they were the wrong kind of crazy for him, or he was bored to tears. No one understood him immediately and implicitly.
"You probably did better." There's less bitterness there than he expects; he doesn't mean to be bitter, but until he says it, he halfway expects it to come out wrong.
She wouldn't fault him for being bitter, if he was. There's really no way to pick up and leave that doesn't result in some bad feelings; she believed, and still believes, it was for the best. But that doesn't mean it was easy or even quantifiably good. If anything she's been impressed at how kind, how civil, he's been. Even when they started working together again; she'd half-expected him to lash out, to be sarcastic and closed-off the way he was the very first time they met.
And sometimes she thinks she understands what it means, that he isn't. The deep-seated feelings that mean after everything he still has a little tenderness left in him for her, even at her worst, and his worst, and under the worst circumstances. It's the reason, now and then, he scares the shit out of her.
"Too bad," she says, with a wry note. "Rock climbing is great exercise."
Checking in with herself, she decides she's not sorry she started this conversation-- though oddly she's a little sorry they're having it in the car. She could have waited; they could be on their beat-up couch with beers, a stolen pair of his thick socks on her feet because she doesn't have anything warm enough anymore, his Navajo blanket over her shoulders. Their knees and elbows touching.
"In quantity or quality?" she asks, rhetorically, a little sarcastically, fighting a wave of feelings too tangled to easily sort. Embarrassment, jealousy, an overpowering want to put her head on his shoulder.
"I tried the apps a little, which-- well, not great for a lasting connection." Everyone loves a cougar but no one wants to keep her around long-term. "Let some friends set me up a few times... A few dates with one of the pharmaceutical reps, but I couldn't shake the feeling she was going to try to sell me something eventually." She bites her lip-- he's been honest, she ought to do the same.
"I almost let Tad take me to dinner." But nothing since then-- which, hopefully, he can infer from that being the last on the list.
She waits a moment, takes a breath, lets the last thing loose.
"It reminds me of dating in the mid-90's, actually."
"Tad?" There's where the bitterness lies, in the awareness that they have a shared resource in Tad O'Malley, and Scully could have screwed him. That work and romance could have gotten tangled, with Mulder watching from the sidelines.
They weren't together at the time. They still aren't really together, they're just less apart. He has no good reason to feel like she betrayed him by even thinking it - but leaving him wasn't betrayal, either, and it had still felt like being eviscerated.
He doesn't want to argue, least of all to argue about a rightwing radio host whose goals occasionally align with theirs. Instead, he makes himself take a breath, the single most useful and annoying of therapy skills. "I didn't do a lot of dating in the 90s, believe it or not. What's similar?"
It's not her proudest moment. She's only telling him because it feels like hiding it would be worse. Tad was handsome enough; tall, well established, and interested. He'd flirted with her in that respectful way that felt just inappropriate enough to be exciting. And-- this part she wouldn't admit aloud under any circumstance-- it mattered that he thought well of Mulder. He'd invited her into his limo with champagne and it had seemed like the sane choice at the time.
And Mulder had called and interrupted, and really, that's the part that made something in her flutter happily.
She has a reward for his good behavior.
"I went out because I knew I was supposed to want to, and I was always a little relieved when it went nowhere."
The best part was always when he called her, with some crazy story or a dead body or a flimsy excuse. She'd wondered at first if he was trying to sabotage her; but eventually it hadn't mattered why. It only mattered that he needed her.
"Sounds like I wasn't missing much," he says, because the thought of her and Tad needs to go down the memory hole, and the idea of Scully sitting miserably through a date in the mid-90s is strangely funny. All dolled up and listening to some jerk prattle on about his stock options over appetizers, or going to a terrible movie just to discover she'd spent the evening sitting next to someone who loved it.
He kind of remembers the turn onto this street last night, though it looks a little more inviting during the day. It's hard not to imagine Scully coming out with a real estate agent, looking at all the identical condos with their mostly-private entries and thinking - well, he doesn't know about that part. Was it this looks perfect or I know I'm supposed to want this? A place she could finally be herself, or just somewhere where he wasn't being him?
Whatever the impetus, hers is no longer the modern, just-like-all-the-rest abode of twenty-four hours ago. He can already see the damage as they pull up: broken glass, mostly, and a lot of it. It's not clear whether 911 ever got called, though he suspects the answer is no, the AI didn't feel like it. "I can put in a call to emergency services while you pack, if you want."
You can't say she didn't make the effort, back then; she recalls lace blouses, complicated hairdos, makeup tips that looked so elegant in magazines and made her look seventeen and lost when she tried them.
Even if it's a little impersonal, this is still her home; she can't help standing a moment to regard it, annoyed and sad about the state of it, as she steps out of the car. What happened isn't Mulder's fault, really, but this will cost more than ten percent on a blob fish.
"That would be great, if you would. Uh-- help yourself to anything in the kitchen, if you want, though I wouldn't trust the water dispenser right now."
She's offering him free reign of the house, really. Hard to have any secrets when there's so little of yourself imprinted on a place.
"I'll double- check the fireplace and then-- I shouldn't be long."
It sounds reasonable, she thinks, and calm; no trace of the panicky internal debate on what to bring, how long to stay, when she'll come back. Whether she wants to go. Whether she'll want to leave. Mulder would be a gentleman and take the couch himself if she asked him to. If he offers, makes a joke about staying up with porn or Plan Nine, it won't be a shock.
But she thinks, maybe, that's not what she wants.
She kicks aside some larger shards of glass as they go inside, a useless gesture considering the breath of the damage.
He owes her a bullet vibrator, at the very least, but probably a serious renovation. That much becomes clear as he wanders through the house. There's a lot of charring - they're probably lucky the whole thing didn't burn down to its metal-and-glass bones.
"Hello, emergency?" It's a strange thing to call 9-1-1 while poking through the fridge. It looks like it was off all night - one more thing to report to insurance. Will they replace spoiled food? He's willing to argue it with a claims adjustor. "I'm calling from, uh -"
Shit, where are they? (How has she lived here so long without his knowing where she is?) He holds the phone away from his mouth a second as he calls, "SCULLY, WHAT'S THE ADDRESS?"
"1213 37th Place," he says, a moment later. "It looks like there was a fire here last night - we need someone to come out and see what happened."
The dispatcher says they'll send people out, and that's that. He's back to wondering at the place, looking at the rooms and trying to imagine them unblistered by fire. Trying to imagine Scully in them, living her best life. Bringing dates home and opening bottles of wine and -
Stop that, Fox.
He heads back toward the bedroom, telling himself he doesn't care who visited it before him. "Fire department's on their way. Need anything from the rest of the house?"
The wine mostly goes to her book club, when it's her turn to host; very few dates make it this far. Scully has always preferred to go home with someone else, side-stepping the need to kick them out if they overstay her attention span.
"I guess I ought to, since I can't exactly lock up-- can you get the bookshelf in the corner of the living room?"
Scully has always tended towards a cozy kind of minimalism, and a career spent traveling plus their years on the run have taught her to travel light. She fills a duffel, figuring it's standard enough not to seem presumptuous; she chooses things that are either easy to launder or can be worn more than once, and folds in one pair of pyjamas in case she loses her nerve on the plan to steal Mulder's shirts. She could do a week easy, two with a load of washing, and if things aren't fixed up after that she'll reasses. There's a little fireproof safe with her important documents and her paranoid stash of cash under the bed, and what little jewelry she keeps is easy enough to tuck into a pocket of her bag.
The bookcase doesn't hold much, and not all of it is books. There's her father's copy of Moby Dick, and a second paperback copy bought on the run. Her mother's Bible and Melissa's favorite tarot deck. A couple of other old books, some signed Jose Chung editions, and an ancient VHS-- Superstars of the Super Bowl. None of it valuable, but all in all, the most precious stuff she has here.
Eventually she emerges, laptop bag slung over her shoulder and the rest in either hand. It feels suddenly like too much. She fights back the urge to ask if it's okay, to carry all this with her. She isn't ready to hear him say it is.
"Sure." He looks for a hall closet before he actually makes his way over to the bookcase in question. There'll be a tote bag or something, right? Scully's always got the kinds of things he doesn't think to keep around the house - if they were fleeing his place, he'd probably be fishing a worn grocery bag out from under the kitchen sink. (They used to use the reusable kind. He never remembers to bring them with him anymore.)
There's one of those woven-looking bags people take to the beach, big enough to carry whatever she might want. He doesn't recognize it, but there's plenty of stuff in here that's unrecognizable, all of it a reminder of just how long Scully's been living here.
He feels less like a stranger when he's actually collecting her things, because all of it used to live at his place, back when it was their place. (And he's starting to notice just how glad he'll be when they're back there. Bethesda's making him a mopey sonuvabitch.) Mulder picks things up one at a time and nestles them in like they could bruise on the way. That a videotape from the early 90s is in among the rest of it feels unbelievable - a piece of him sitting in plain sight, given a place of honor in a home he's never been in.
He's still holding the tape when he hears her footsteps, staring at it like it might whisper secrets beyond Johnny Unitas was one hell of a player - and nearly fumbles the damned thing, shoving it into the bag as he turns around. Scully doesn't say anything, and neither does he, just leads the way back to the car. They'll be stuck here a while longer, waiting for the fire department to check the place out - and he'll probably suggest she file a formal complaint about emergency response times, even if the emergency is technically over - but eventually, they'll go back to Farrs Corner and the old farmhouse.
There's so little she still keeps with her from the old days; most of this, her mother managed to keep in storage. She knows he'll see the tape; maybe it will put him at ease, a little, to think of her thinking of him. Lining it up with her other peculiar treasures. Or something.
It's strange to pack all her things into the back of his car, mostly because there's a part of her-- too large a part of her-- that thinks, this is fine; she could leave without looking back, not really. The bits and pieces of art, the rest of her wardrobe, the appliances and furniture-- she could live without that. She doesn't want to ditch it, but she wouldn't morn it.
The firemen come and go; they do a walk-through, they take her information, they get a basic statement, and leave her with recommendations, with numbers to call, with a house that's still in large part shattered glass. It's about what she expected. It's fine.
And then they go.
The ride is familiar, and fairly quiet. She thinks it's not a bad sort of quiet. And when they pull up-- it's a normal reaction, it's just the familiar surroundings, her brain telling her body home out of a habit that hasn't quite broken.
"The place looks good," she says approvingly. He's been taking care of it.
They used to make this drive - the bigger shape of it, the general D.C.-to-Nowheresville trip - so often. He finds himself thinking of it the whole way home, of other times he and Scully had driven along sleepy backroads to the home they'd made together. Hell, it's not like she's been a stranger in the last year or two - but she's met him out here. She's always had a clean getaway if she needed it, and he didn't begrudge her the metaphorical escape hatch; he was too happy that she was willing to drive out at all.
"You think so? I'm thinking of having it painted." More importantly: Scully still likes how the house looks. Pushing the lawnmower around is still paying off. "The color's called chartreuse - I don't know what it looks like, but it sounds good."
(Okay, he's actually planning on more of the same neutral tone - but maybe he'll make her laugh.
Inside, there's new furniture to replace what got shot up a while back - most of it not actually from Ikea - but it's all the same mix of homey and homely as ever. Dark wood and patterns that might be ugly colors and might not, because someone bought them purely for the visual interest of the fabric. Some new printouts from the internet tacked to the wall above his downstairs desk, some of the old ones. The sun's coming through the windows, though, and everything's reasonably clean, thanks to recent bouts of insomnia. To his eye, the place looks pretty good in the morning light, if more lived-in than Scully's broken jewel of a Bethesda condominium.
And anyway, she's been here a million times. She knows perfectly well what to expect from a Mulder abode. It just feels different, when she's going to stay longer than it takes to fall asleep on the couch watching TV with him.
"Make yourself at home," he tells her, tossing his jacket on a kitchen chair, and then wonders if that sounded half as needy as it feels. Stay, and don't leave.
Chartreuse is almost too awful to joke about. She scoffs at the thought, but there's a laugh in it too; she shoots him a look which he probably can't see, but they've known each other long enough that he should be able to feel it, she thinks.
Escape hatch or not, she feels perfectly at ease, coming into his space. Mulder's tastes might be questionable from a fashion perspective, but they're comfortable. (It doesn't hurt, either, how familiar it feels; even if the furniture is new, the vibe is the same, and the past few months have made it easier to remember the good times than the bad ones.)
She hangs her coat on a hook on the wall, and drops her bags in an out-of-the-way spot, putting off the question of what to do with them. Should she unpack? Does she live out of her suitcase, like she's at a motel? She doesn't want to give the wrong impression, and since she has no idea what the right impression is, the whole thing can just... wait. For now, she goes to put on tea water without thinking twice about it.
The house always feels better with her in it. It's fine on its own, eminently functional, and he's even gotten to a point where it doesn't feel like an empty cavern around him. (After she left, it had been like an ill-fitting coat, in ways he should have been able to predict and hadn't. He'd lived alone for years beforehand, after all. Long enough, even, that he'd thought of his old apartment as his old apartment, as if he'd never lost the will to mattress-shop after he lost his bed in his last great breakup.) But bring Scully in, and there's instantly more sound. More light, more...he's not saying there's more reason to live, and has in fact spent a lot of copay money in pursuit of not saying that. But he likes it better when she's around.
Her stuff goes in a corner, and Mulder sets her beach-bag of important objects on the kitchen table, like a centerpiece.
"Maybe." He stretches, cracking his neck, and glances at Scully in a way he's hoping reads as 'casual' rather than 'trying to look casual but actually extremely invested in the outcome of this conversation.' "Are you tired?"
When she'd first started dropping by, honestly, she'd just been impressed that things seemed reasonably well-kept and neat. She'd worried about him immensely, in those days after she'd left; in a sense that's why she'd had to go. And it had been strange, at first, to visit-- but not as uncomfortable as she might have expected. The house had lost her particular touch, but it had never felt like she'd been wholly driven out of it, either.
And now... It's nice. Still familiar, but with some of the ghosts chased away. Less polished than her condo, but more cozy. She feels welcome to stay, but not too worried to go; and that's something they haven't had in a long time, such a long time. Their relationship went from a secret to a mourned memory, to an uncertainty. And then he was gone. And then they were gone, together. And through all of that there were good times, and terrible times, and they'd fought and they'd loved and they'd saved each other through and through-- but there was nearly always some desperation, some circumstance forcing their hands. It's different now, because they both know they can go on alone if they have to; that if they're here together, it's an active choice every moment. It's part of why she usually drives over herself. If she can leave, it means something specific when she stays.
Leaning back against the counter, she watches him for a moment; the spark of hope that shines through, the way he can't entirely seem as casual as he wants to. (Though he's doing a good job.)
They can't pick up where they left off; they shouldn't, because there were real problems, important reasons they'd had to part. And she appreciates the invitation as a favor-- but at the same time, it's not just that. She's not a guest; she isn't here for lack of other options. She's going to spend time with him because she wants to, and he wants her here, and that seems like a solid starting point.
"Well, if it's doctor's orders," he says, and there's an irrepressible brightness to the words as he heads for the stairs. It doesn't feel real, which might be the lack of sleep talking - out of the last forty-eight hours, he's pretty sure he spent around forty-four of them conscious. But it could as easily be the giddiness of Scully wants to stay, I always sleep better when - "I only ignore those when I need a punishment."
Bullshit, Fox, he thinks to himself, pulling off his shirt as he wanders into his bedroom. Their bedroom, for what might be a special one-night engagement, and what might not. There's another room, his other-desk-and-sort-of-guest-bedroom room, where he threw a twin bed in for lazy nights and theoretical visits from...he's never gotten so far as having an answer to that. Not one he's willing to bring up in conversation, at least. And she could sleep in there, if she wanted, but hell, why would she want that?
(Adopted kids can seek out their birth parents once they're eighteen, if Lifetime movies haven't lied to him. William's almost eighteen. At some point, he went to Ikea and bought a twin bed, and sometimes he falls asleep in there, and someday, maybe it'll have a real use. He tries not to think about it.)
"Really?" Her tone is light, amused; she follows along without hesitating. "That's a new development."
If things were more settled, she might make a lascivious joke about it. Or... maybe not, because at the moment she wants nothing more than to burrow against his side and sleep off the memory of her vibrator's murder attempt.
She does pause by his dresser, glancing at him in a way she hopes feels casual.
"I'm going to borrow a shirt," she announces, giving him a chance to object if he wants to without the uneasy deference of asking permission. With any luck, it sounds like she just didn't think of it until this moment, and not like a premeditated plan to steal his clothing.
"Vitamin D supplements every day," he goes on, unbuckling his belt, "and no jaywalking unless I'm really in a hurry. I'm an upstanding citizen, Scully."
One whose tendency towards bad jokes is multiplied when the alternative is letting the quiet settle too close around them. It's not like they haven't screwed around some in the recent past. It's not like 'Scully falls asleep next to Mulder' is charting new territory; that's been a regular occurrence since the Clinton administration. But warp the edges of the situation, 'Scully falls asleep next to Mulder in a bed that's his but used to be theirs,' and things get hairier.
And he's not the only one who feels it, or she wouldn't be declaring her plans to rummage through his clothes for sleepwear; she'd just do it. Which she definitely could. Mi casa es su casa, Scully. "The ones on the left are clean."
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(Focus, Fox.)
More importantly: the in-between, everything that happens before they get to some waterlogged cabin in the depths of Vermont. And here's Scully, who hasn't had a bad hair day since 1995, coming in clutch with both good ideas and kissable faces. (He doesn't kiss her. He just wants to.) "Sure. We can put some CAUTION tape up."
And yet here he is, sitting here a moment too long. Neither the coffee-scented bustle nor Scully's hand are things he wants to let go of. When he does, reluctantly, it's to shove his phone in his pocket and start walking out toward his car.
"Your place was nice," he says, as he's buckling up. "I liked the little, uh, water thing."
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Packing a bag, after all, implies a stay. A nebulous amount of time spent cohabiting with the man she left, a man she's arguably dating. Since they started working together, she's been endlessly careful not to give him the wrong impression-- as though there were some right impression to give.
And she could make some practical excuse, that it's ridiculous to spend money on a hotel when she's got other options, that he's just doing her a favor and there's plenty of room in the house-- she could sleep on the couch-- but she's not going to, and she's too tired to argue herself out of taking him up on the offer.
"It's a nice place," she agrees. "Though I'm rethinking how much glass there is. I'd offer to give you the nickel tour, but."
She shrugs, and shoots him a small smile.
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There are questions sitting heavily on the console between them. Chief among them, at least for Mulder, is Why is this the first time I've seen it? On an intellectual level, he can appreciate the need for a sanctum sanctorum, particularly where Dana Scully is concerned - but it turns out her holiest of holy places has all the warmth and personality of a well-kept Airbnb. It's nothing like the home they shared, and nothing like the apartment she kept before that.
Some of it, no doubt, is the fact that nothing in the world today looks like the apartment of a thirtysomething circa 1995. The world contains far fewer sprays of dried flowers and matchy-matchy window valances than it used to. But in the brief time he was there - and in fairness, he'd had other things on his mind - he'd seen nothing that said Scully to him.
(On the other hand - had their home ever said Scully? Or had it just been Mulder, to greater or lesser extent in any given room?)
He's known her for decades, and there are still times when he remembers that however much he knows, there are parts of her that he's never caught more than a glimpse of. Seeing her home, realizing the extent to which her life has gone on without him, has a way of cutting that knowledge into his bones.
Because some part of him learned absolutely nothing from the last twelve hours of his life, he mounts his smartphone in his car and says, clearly and deliberately, "Play The Cure."
The phone does what he asks, and he turns "Friday I'm in Love" down until it's mere background sound for the ride over to Scully's place. No AI instructions, but an AI deejay beats the hell out of listening to an FM station full of ads and tedious deejay commentary.
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(And why is that? Was she worried it would hurt him, to see her move on? Or that it would hurt her, to let him see the way she lived on her own; the perfectly-manicured, high-end place that could have been anyone's.)
She fixes his phone with a wary look, but it fades, eventually; she relaxes against the seat, looking out the window. This, in a way, still feels more familiar than the home they're heading to.
"Is it strange--"
Yes, it's strange; that's the wrong question. It isn't a question. She pauses and tries again. Less tentative. This isn't a hypothetical.
"I had a good time," she says, more softly, looking up at him. "Aside from the part where everything with a battery or plug tried to kill us, I mean."
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(They'll reference it for years to come, if there are years to come. It'll be something that can be drawn up in five words or less - remember the killer sushi place? - and the reason will be almost nothing to do with either of them, once you discount the fact that it's technically Mulder's fault for refusing to tip some robot's puppet masters.)
"I did, too," he tells the SUV in front of them. It's quiet for a moment, aside from Robert Smith and company, and the rumble of wheels on asphalt. And then he risks it. "Best date I've been on in years."
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The curiosity it sparks feels prurient; she sneaks a look at him.
They're both adults. It's silly to keep tiptoeing around the years between them. But it still takes her a moment to work up the nerve to ask, partly because she realizes that touching the topic is potentially a jumbo-sized can of worms, and it's not like she can stay at the condo if it goes south.
"....Have you been?"
It's half a question, but Mulder usually knows what she means with less than that to go on. What has he been up to, since she's been gone?
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There's a difference between saying, Hey, Scully, let's try this sushi place and Hey, Scully, go on a date with me. There's a fig leaf of respectable friendship on the former, a kind of dating chicken that feels strangely like the old days. And there's a more difference yet between best date I've been on in years and let me tell you about my intense failure of a love life.
"My, uh, head-shrinker," the one he still can't believe he keeps on speed-dial, but here they are, living in the unimaginable future of 2018, "suggested I 'try getting out there again.'"
He doesn't do the finger-quotes, but they're implied in the tone of his voice: As if I was ever 'out there' in the first place. Scully will know. And she'll probably know to wait through a pause while he tries to figure out the least pathetic-sounding way to tell this story, because he'll look like he's still ready to say something, even though he's also changing lanes and making a face at the douchebag-mobile pickup that wouldn't let him in.
"That was - is this the exit? - it was about two years after -" you left me - "everything.
I think the last time I actually went on one was a month before Skinner called us."
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"That's good," she says, and immediately regrets how patronizing it sounds; she means it earnestly. It's never been good for him to be so alone. (And, yeah, it's her fault in part that he was; she won't deny it. But she couldn't have stayed, if she was only staying so he wouldn't be by himself; that wasn't healthy for either of them, wallowing in the damp, drizzly November of the soul. She'd had to go to sea.)
The strategic move here is to volunteer some information of her own; make him feel heard and offer some vulnerable admission, but on her own terms. Control the narrative, make it sound... however it would best sound, she supposes. Successful and dignified and sanitized, like her currently uninhabitable home.
Instead she lets the silence hang, offering him the chance to pry if he wants to, or to avoid the topic; but she leans towards the center of the car, reaches to set a hand on his arm.
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And even with his therapist - a well-dressed woman fifteen years his junior who took no shit, but politely - gently pointing out that that didn't seem likely, it took another year and a half to accept it. If he ever truly did. They talked about goals and dreams, and he'd even come up with some. See a Knicks game at every NBA arena. Try to write a memoir - not for public consumption, but just so there was a record of his life beyond government files locked in a basement. Make friends to watch baseball with and maybe try eating dinner with someone new. Just see where things go. But he'd never done most of those things. He'd talked about making a fulfilling life and then gone back to his empty house with its newspaper clippings, and the best he'd managed was cooking stir-fry for one, because decent Chinese delivery in Farrs Corner was like asking for a unicorn from Santa Claus.
(They talked about all the usual things, too, Samantha and government secrets and William and Scully. About how their son and their past meant he'd always have a connection to Scully, and how it could be okay if it weren't romantic anymore. About his sister's soul, sparkling out there among the stars, and what he'd want to share from his life with her. How to live a life he'd want to tell her about, if he could.)
Now, with Scully's hand on his, he feels - well, something. Something that doesn't have a good single word to sum it up. Happy and sad all at once, and like he can't ask her about herself unless he says at least one more thing about his misadventures in dating.
"The last one," he says instead, "was a divorced guy from Rhode Island. Two kids, rock climbing instructor. I think he thought I was a lunatic by the time we said good night."
I didn't get to a third date with anyone. Either he was too crazy for them, or they were the wrong kind of crazy for him, or he was bored to tears. No one understood him immediately and implicitly.
"You probably did better." There's less bitterness there than he expects; he doesn't mean to be bitter, but until he says it, he halfway expects it to come out wrong.
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And sometimes she thinks she understands what it means, that he isn't. The deep-seated feelings that mean after everything he still has a little tenderness left in him for her, even at her worst, and his worst, and under the worst circumstances. It's the reason, now and then, he scares the shit out of her.
"Too bad," she says, with a wry note. "Rock climbing is great exercise."
Checking in with herself, she decides she's not sorry she started this conversation-- though oddly she's a little sorry they're having it in the car. She could have waited; they could be on their beat-up couch with beers, a stolen pair of his thick socks on her feet because she doesn't have anything warm enough anymore, his Navajo blanket over her shoulders. Their knees and elbows touching.
"In quantity or quality?" she asks, rhetorically, a little sarcastically, fighting a wave of feelings too tangled to easily sort. Embarrassment, jealousy, an overpowering want to put her head on his shoulder.
"I tried the apps a little, which-- well, not great for a lasting connection." Everyone loves a cougar but no one wants to keep her around long-term. "Let some friends set me up a few times... A few dates with one of the pharmaceutical reps, but I couldn't shake the feeling she was going to try to sell me something eventually." She bites her lip-- he's been honest, she ought to do the same.
"I almost let Tad take me to dinner." But nothing since then-- which, hopefully, he can infer from that being the last on the list.
She waits a moment, takes a breath, lets the last thing loose.
"It reminds me of dating in the mid-90's, actually."
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They weren't together at the time. They still aren't really together, they're just less apart. He has no good reason to feel like she betrayed him by even thinking it - but leaving him wasn't betrayal, either, and it had still felt like being eviscerated.
He doesn't want to argue, least of all to argue about a rightwing radio host whose goals occasionally align with theirs. Instead, he makes himself take a breath, the single most useful and annoying of therapy skills. "I didn't do a lot of dating in the 90s, believe it or not. What's similar?"
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And Mulder had called and interrupted, and really, that's the part that made something in her flutter happily.
She has a reward for his good behavior.
"I went out because I knew I was supposed to want to, and I was always a little relieved when it went nowhere."
The best part was always when he called her, with some crazy story or a dead body or a flimsy excuse. She'd wondered at first if he was trying to sabotage her; but eventually it hadn't mattered why. It only mattered that he needed her.
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He kind of remembers the turn onto this street last night, though it looks a little more inviting during the day. It's hard not to imagine Scully coming out with a real estate agent, looking at all the identical condos with their mostly-private entries and thinking - well, he doesn't know about that part. Was it this looks perfect or I know I'm supposed to want this? A place she could finally be herself, or just somewhere where he wasn't being him?
Whatever the impetus, hers is no longer the modern, just-like-all-the-rest abode of twenty-four hours ago. He can already see the damage as they pull up: broken glass, mostly, and a lot of it. It's not clear whether 911 ever got called, though he suspects the answer is no, the AI didn't feel like it. "I can put in a call to emergency services while you pack, if you want."
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Even if it's a little impersonal, this is still her home; she can't help standing a moment to regard it, annoyed and sad about the state of it, as she steps out of the car. What happened isn't Mulder's fault, really, but this will cost more than ten percent on a blob fish.
"That would be great, if you would. Uh-- help yourself to anything in the kitchen, if you want, though I wouldn't trust the water dispenser right now."
She's offering him free reign of the house, really. Hard to have any secrets when there's so little of yourself imprinted on a place.
"I'll double- check the fireplace and then-- I shouldn't be long."
It sounds reasonable, she thinks, and calm; no trace of the panicky internal debate on what to bring, how long to stay, when she'll come back. Whether she wants to go. Whether she'll want to leave. Mulder would be a gentleman and take the couch himself if she asked him to. If he offers, makes a joke about staying up with porn or Plan Nine, it won't be a shock.
But she thinks, maybe, that's not what she wants.
She kicks aside some larger shards of glass as they go inside, a useless gesture considering the breath of the damage.
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"Hello, emergency?" It's a strange thing to call 9-1-1 while poking through the fridge. It looks like it was off all night - one more thing to report to insurance. Will they replace spoiled food? He's willing to argue it with a claims adjustor. "I'm calling from, uh -"
Shit, where are they? (How has she lived here so long without his knowing where she is?) He holds the phone away from his mouth a second as he calls, "SCULLY, WHAT'S THE ADDRESS?"
"1213 37th Place," he says, a moment later. "It looks like there was a fire here last night - we need someone to come out and see what happened."
The dispatcher says they'll send people out, and that's that. He's back to wondering at the place, looking at the rooms and trying to imagine them unblistered by fire. Trying to imagine Scully in them, living her best life. Bringing dates home and opening bottles of wine and -
Stop that, Fox.
He heads back toward the bedroom, telling himself he doesn't care who visited it before him. "Fire department's on their way. Need anything from the rest of the house?"
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"I guess I ought to, since I can't exactly lock up-- can you get the bookshelf in the corner of the living room?"
Scully has always tended towards a cozy kind of minimalism, and a career spent traveling plus their years on the run have taught her to travel light. She fills a duffel, figuring it's standard enough not to seem presumptuous; she chooses things that are either easy to launder or can be worn more than once, and folds in one pair of pyjamas in case she loses her nerve on the plan to steal Mulder's shirts. She could do a week easy, two with a load of washing, and if things aren't fixed up after that she'll reasses. There's a little fireproof safe with her important documents and her paranoid stash of cash under the bed, and what little jewelry she keeps is easy enough to tuck into a pocket of her bag.
The bookcase doesn't hold much, and not all of it is books. There's her father's copy of Moby Dick, and a second paperback copy bought on the run. Her mother's Bible and Melissa's favorite tarot deck. A couple of other old books, some signed Jose Chung editions, and an ancient VHS-- Superstars of the Super Bowl. None of it valuable, but all in all, the most precious stuff she has here.
Eventually she emerges, laptop bag slung over her shoulder and the rest in either hand. It feels suddenly like too much. She fights back the urge to ask if it's okay, to carry all this with her. She isn't ready to hear him say it is.
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There's one of those woven-looking bags people take to the beach, big enough to carry whatever she might want. He doesn't recognize it, but there's plenty of stuff in here that's unrecognizable, all of it a reminder of just how long Scully's been living here.
He feels less like a stranger when he's actually collecting her things, because all of it used to live at his place, back when it was their place. (And he's starting to notice just how glad he'll be when they're back there. Bethesda's making him a mopey sonuvabitch.) Mulder picks things up one at a time and nestles them in like they could bruise on the way. That a videotape from the early 90s is in among the rest of it feels unbelievable - a piece of him sitting in plain sight, given a place of honor in a home he's never been in.
He's still holding the tape when he hears her footsteps, staring at it like it might whisper secrets beyond Johnny Unitas was one hell of a player - and nearly fumbles the damned thing, shoving it into the bag as he turns around. Scully doesn't say anything, and neither does he, just leads the way back to the car. They'll be stuck here a while longer, waiting for the fire department to check the place out - and he'll probably suggest she file a formal complaint about emergency response times, even if the emergency is technically over - but eventually, they'll go back to Farrs Corner and the old farmhouse.
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It's strange to pack all her things into the back of his car, mostly because there's a part of her-- too large a part of her-- that thinks, this is fine; she could leave without looking back, not really. The bits and pieces of art, the rest of her wardrobe, the appliances and furniture-- she could live without that. She doesn't want to ditch it, but she wouldn't morn it.
The firemen come and go; they do a walk-through, they take her information, they get a basic statement, and leave her with recommendations, with numbers to call, with a house that's still in large part shattered glass. It's about what she expected. It's fine.
And then they go.
The ride is familiar, and fairly quiet. She thinks it's not a bad sort of quiet. And when they pull up-- it's a normal reaction, it's just the familiar surroundings, her brain telling her body home out of a habit that hasn't quite broken.
"The place looks good," she says approvingly. He's been taking care of it.
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"You think so? I'm thinking of having it painted." More importantly: Scully still likes how the house looks. Pushing the lawnmower around is still paying off. "The color's called chartreuse - I don't know what it looks like, but it sounds good."
(Okay, he's actually planning on more of the same neutral tone - but maybe he'll make her laugh.
Inside, there's new furniture to replace what got shot up a while back - most of it not actually from Ikea - but it's all the same mix of homey and homely as ever. Dark wood and patterns that might be ugly colors and might not, because someone bought them purely for the visual interest of the fabric. Some new printouts from the internet tacked to the wall above his downstairs desk, some of the old ones. The sun's coming through the windows, though, and everything's reasonably clean, thanks to recent bouts of insomnia. To his eye, the place looks pretty good in the morning light, if more lived-in than Scully's broken jewel of a Bethesda condominium.
And anyway, she's been here a million times. She knows perfectly well what to expect from a Mulder abode. It just feels different, when she's going to stay longer than it takes to fall asleep on the couch watching TV with him.
"Make yourself at home," he tells her, tossing his jacket on a kitchen chair, and then wonders if that sounded half as needy as it feels. Stay, and don't leave.
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Escape hatch or not, she feels perfectly at ease, coming into his space. Mulder's tastes might be questionable from a fashion perspective, but they're comfortable. (It doesn't hurt, either, how familiar it feels; even if the furniture is new, the vibe is the same, and the past few months have made it easier to remember the good times than the bad ones.)
She hangs her coat on a hook on the wall, and drops her bags in an out-of-the-way spot, putting off the question of what to do with them. Should she unpack? Does she live out of her suitcase, like she's at a motel? She doesn't want to give the wrong impression, and since she has no idea what the right impression is, the whole thing can just... wait. For now, she goes to put on tea water without thinking twice about it.
"Still thinking about a nap?"
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Her stuff goes in a corner, and Mulder sets her beach-bag of important objects on the kitchen table, like a centerpiece.
"Maybe." He stretches, cracking his neck, and glances at Scully in a way he's hoping reads as 'casual' rather than 'trying to look casual but actually extremely invested in the outcome of this conversation.' "Are you tired?"
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And now... It's nice. Still familiar, but with some of the ghosts chased away. Less polished than her condo, but more cozy. She feels welcome to stay, but not too worried to go; and that's something they haven't had in a long time, such a long time. Their relationship went from a secret to a mourned memory, to an uncertainty. And then he was gone. And then they were gone, together. And through all of that there were good times, and terrible times, and they'd fought and they'd loved and they'd saved each other through and through-- but there was nearly always some desperation, some circumstance forcing their hands. It's different now, because they both know they can go on alone if they have to; that if they're here together, it's an active choice every moment. It's part of why she usually drives over herself. If she can leave, it means something specific when she stays.
Leaning back against the counter, she watches him for a moment; the spark of hope that shines through, the way he can't entirely seem as casual as he wants to. (Though he's doing a good job.)
They can't pick up where they left off; they shouldn't, because there were real problems, important reasons they'd had to part. And she appreciates the invitation as a favor-- but at the same time, it's not just that. She's not a guest; she isn't here for lack of other options. She's going to spend time with him because she wants to, and he wants her here, and that seems like a solid starting point.
"It'd be good for us to get some rest."
Together, yes.
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Bullshit, Fox, he thinks to himself, pulling off his shirt as he wanders into his bedroom. Their bedroom, for what might be a special one-night engagement, and what might not. There's another room, his other-desk-and-sort-of-guest-bedroom room, where he threw a twin bed in for lazy nights and theoretical visits from...he's never gotten so far as having an answer to that. Not one he's willing to bring up in conversation, at least. And she could sleep in there, if she wanted, but hell, why would she want that?
(Adopted kids can seek out their birth parents once they're eighteen, if Lifetime movies haven't lied to him. William's almost eighteen. At some point, he went to Ikea and bought a twin bed, and sometimes he falls asleep in there, and someday, maybe it'll have a real use. He tries not to think about it.)
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"Really?" Her tone is light, amused; she follows along without hesitating. "That's a new development."
If things were more settled, she might make a lascivious joke about it. Or... maybe not, because at the moment she wants nothing more than to burrow against his side and sleep off the memory of her vibrator's murder attempt.
She does pause by his dresser, glancing at him in a way she hopes feels casual.
"I'm going to borrow a shirt," she announces, giving him a chance to object if he wants to without the uneasy deference of asking permission. With any luck, it sounds like she just didn't think of it until this moment, and not like a premeditated plan to steal his clothing.
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One whose tendency towards bad jokes is multiplied when the alternative is letting the quiet settle too close around them. It's not like they haven't screwed around some in the recent past. It's not like 'Scully falls asleep next to Mulder' is charting new territory; that's been a regular occurrence since the Clinton administration. But warp the edges of the situation, 'Scully falls asleep next to Mulder in a bed that's his but used to be theirs,' and things get hairier.
And he's not the only one who feels it, or she wouldn't be declaring her plans to rummage through his clothes for sleepwear; she'd just do it. Which she definitely could. Mi casa es su casa, Scully. "The ones on the left are clean."
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