jowls | open post.

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?"

His self-control is admirable; he doesn't pause or stumble as he passes, it's all natural. And that's.... strange? As long as she's known Mulder, he's lived alone-- it's not the fact that he can take care of himself that feels like a funny fit, it's the way he moves with and around her like it's a practiced dance.

She lets herself brood on it as she makes the rice, which in fairness is mostly waiting, and detouring to switch the laundry over to the dryer when it buzzes. It feels dangerous to let herself sink into this apparently dormant domestic habit-- because even if this will be her life, someday, right now it's not meant to be.

But it's pleasant, the feeling of this house shedding dust and neglect and becoming once more a home. Mulder's home, at the very least.

"Seems like a good pairing," she answers with a smile. It's not for the memory of his younger self-- it's just so good to see him brightened up like this.

He grins, going to get a pair of wineglasses from a cupboard. One for her, one for him, filled a little under halfway. "The food'll be ready in about fifteen minutes. Want to eat inside or out?"

Inside means the kitchen table or the couch, though they've been styling this meal like it's a nice one - so probably the table. Outside means a little table and two chairs, none of which have been wiped down in months, with a view of too-long grass and the weedy garden, along with the open field space he's never come up with a use for. Sometimes he thinks they should leave it to the local wildlife; sometimes he wants to grow a hedge maze or make it over into a baseball diamond, Field of Dreams style. The reality is, whenever he thinks about changing it, he remembers just how few people would see the results, and it stops him.

"It's nice out," she reasons. Warmer than she'd expect for this time of year. "Why not?"

A little exploration yields a clean bowl for the rice, and with a pat of butter added she considers it a job well done. Cooking isn't her forte, but apparently it's become Mulder's. The scent is enough to make her stomach rumble, her wayward appetite apparently also susceptible to the strange air of normalcy.

"You still have to show me around the garden," she adds with a smile, remembering his earlier comments.

He gets some plates and silverware to set their little table, and hopes silently that it doesn't look too dingy. He can't remember the last time he used it - maybe in the spring, drinking a beer and enjoying the fact that he couldn't see his breath. The chicken and vegetables come over, crowded onto a plate that's slightly too small for them, and he puts a whole breast on each of their plates. Scully can figure out the sides for herself, but he's not giving her a chance to cut off a little wedge of chicken and call it dinner. She needs her strength.

"After dinner." He looks a little sheepish as he says it, nodding toward a corner of the yard that's overgrown in a different way than it is over here. "I...didn't do much with it, this year. Or last year. But a few of the flowers are still blooming."

She could care less about dingy; besides, she'll have clean new clothes to slip into this evening, thank God, what's a little more dust? It's not a manicured view, sure, but there's something charming about it anyway. Seeing the house for the first time, it had seemed lonesome-- but now, with the scent of food and the quiet hum of the dryer going, it's easy to see how it could be peaceful. Cozy, even.

There's the obvious difference that he's not alone, but it feels like it's more than that. Like the whole place has roused from a long hibernation.

"I could kill a fake cactus," she points out, taking a spoon of rice. This is too much food, but she'll make an honest effort. "I'm still impressed."

Moments like this are when the house always seems to come alive: quiet times, when all that matters is that it's nice out and they're together. Sometimes - now included - he feels that bitter pang, we aren't all here, we aren't together. With the distraction of Scully, the mystery of her presence and her utter ignorance of what they'll share, it's easier to shove it down...but it's there.

(Part of him has never really forgiven himself for having good days despite the fact that their son is a mystery. This dinner should feature a thirteen-year-old with a wineglass of orange juice, trying to explain to his thirtysomething mother how video games work. William's presence would make the entire time-travel mess more complicated - the idea of making him a part of the problem is unpalatable - but having to plan around him would at least mean he was here. Work and running from the government both kept him busy enough not to dwell on the problem, but take those away, and he's left with an endless supply of nice days he doesn't deserve.)

"If you're still here in a few weeks - and I'm saying that in hopes of getting you home sooner than that," he adds, before she can protest, deciding to try and force Murphy's Law to kick in, "you can help me plan what to plant next time around. I was doing half flowers, half vegetables, for a while, but I'm thinking about switching it up."

It might not actually happen, of course, but it's nice to imagine from here. And any conversation keeps his thoughts from drifting too close to William.

It feels oddly cruel to admit she hopes not to be here then. It's not him-- spending time with Mulder, knowing she'll live to see this future, has been incredible, an oddly calm interlude in the chaos of her life-- but the longer she stays here untreated, she worries, the less time she'll have to find whatever miracle they do at home. It's a sobering, frightening thought, that glimpsing her future might endanger it-- but maybe that's par for the course, if anything is, with time travel.

"To more flowers or more vegetables?" she asks idly. It's small talk, but hopeful small talk, which seems like a good thing.

"That's the question." He stabs at a piece of bell pepper, scooping up rice with it. "Man cannot live on cucumber alone - I learned that the hard way a few years ago. But flowers..."

He shrugs. The reality is, flowers are better if there's someone to enjoy them with. He can appreciate intellectually the need for pollination and saving the bees, but the true appeal of a garden full of flowers is being able to put a bouquet on the table or laying a rose on Scully's pillow.

"They don't do much," Mulder finishes, deciding that's the safest route. "Even if you're sick of zucchini bread by October, you made something out of it."

Over the years, the two of them have become oddly attuned-- they have a habit of hearing what's unsaid. And here, she... can't. But the absence echoes; whatever he's telling her by not telling her is terribly important.

It's a little unnerving, honestly. It's a moment where the distance between them stretches wider, uncanny and impassible.

She considers it a while, a few slow bites of chicken. And when she speaks again, it could almost be a non sequitur, measured and calm as she gazes out over the too-tall grass.

"There's value in things that are fleeting."

She's been desperate to affirm that for herself, for obvious reasons. Even now, knowing that maybe she's wrong about how close the end is-- there has to be value in all things, she needs to believe it. She could disappear again as soon as she walks inside, slipping through time as smoothly as she did in Rhode Island, but there'd still be value to being here with him.

He can follow that, at least. From a woman who - until very recently - was reckoning with the probability of her own death, the point is clear. And she, like he, isn't all that concerned with the flowers.

The temptation to talk to Scully about her future self is overwhelming, to reminisce like a widower. You loved those ones over there - I used to tuck one into your bag while you weren't looking, and you'd find it at work. These ones, you loved the scent but hated the color, and we made do. Even if that didn't give the whole game away, even if it didn't have a whiff of the pathetic to it, it wouldn't be fair to her. He knows intellectually that it wouldn't.

It's mostly the fact that it pulls the veil off the entire thing that keeps him from saying it, though. Self-preservation is what wins, not selflessness.

"Maybe there is," he says, reaching for his glass. There's another quiet little moment, his heart aching for both Scullys, this one and the one he's missing. "What would you plant? Say you had a gardener to handle all the dirty work - what would you want?"

She's not sure she's persuaded him-- if it's even something to be persuaded into-- but at least he takes the comment seriously. It defuses a tension she doesn't understand, and that's worth something.

And flowers are a nicer subject. She relaxes a little.

"I don't know if I know enough about flowers to have interesting ideas," she admits, with a little smiling. "Lavender, I think. And roses, but maybe the wilder kind- the ones that are smaller but have more scent." She considers it for another bite. "What are the big ones that are like perfume... Peonies?"

Considering her fondness for scented bath oils, that can't be surprising.

"Peonies," he agrees, and can't help smiling. Some things never change, in the best possible way. "It's too bad you came late in the season - the bush I have stopped blooming in June."

He shouldn't admit it - he doubts she'd recognize the green leaves without the flowers to go along with - but he can't resist it. Even if Scully, I have every flower you just asked for might as well be a nail in the coffin of their platonic relationship. There's lavender in the garden that's still blooming, and she'll be able to recognize the roses.

(The roses are for him, too - beach roses, the kind he remembers from his childhood on the island. He's always liked them better than the cultivated kind, and they're a hell of a lot hardier, too.)

The smile she gives him is gentle; her suspicions for the moment aren't relevant. Maybe he planted them for her; even if he hadn't, it's nice to know they're here, growing. Even if she was here and is now gone. Even if he leaves this little house behind, the flowers will endure, deep-rooted and quiet and beautiful. Doesn't that count for something?

"It sounds lovely," she says, grateful to know it even if she can't see it. If he did it for her-- not her, but her-- it's a lovely thought. A little sad in light of-- she has no idea of what, really. But no less beautiful. For her, beautiful and sad are so often intertwined, lately.

"Are the flowers more or less work than the fish?" she asks, a warm and teasing tone.

"Less, most of the time." His smile's gone a little crooked at the thought; he misses the fish sometimes, but it's been a while since he trusted himself to be able to take care of another animal. "If you're out of the game for a while, they can take care of themselves. Gardening's as hard as you want it to be."

If you're hands-off in a years-long depressive funk, then so be it. The plants survive, or they don't, but there's less guilt about failing to keep them going. In some ways, they aren't as rewarding, but the risk's lower, too. It all evens out.

He finishes off his rosé, feeling pleasantly warm from it. Neither of them have cleaned their plates, but this isn't Leave it to Beaver. "I'll show you around after we put the food away."

In a funny way she's fond of his fish, even though she doesn't give them much conscious attention. They're a part of the comfortable background radiation of his apartment, cool light and the murmur of water, and they give her an excuse to meddle. Here's a key, feed the fish while I'm out of town. It's good for him to have the routine, to take care of something.

All that matters here is whether he's taking care of himself, and-- and.

She eats until she's full, and manages at least half the chicken, which feels like plenty. For a fleeting moment, she thinks-- maybe all this is worth it; even if she stayed here to live out her last lingering days with him, it's not such a bad life.

(It's not such a bad life with him here, is the truth, in any year.)

Finishing her own wine, she stands to take her own plate inside-- she can't help it, serially self-reliant, terrible at being a guest in someone else's home. But she'll let him take the lead in finding containers for leftovers.

He misses the fish sometimes. But you kill one set of them - not because you were off saving the world or being digested by fungi, simply because you couldn't get yourself out of your chair to feed them or clean their tank - and it's hard to justify more. Even he could see it was a bad idea, and his idea of a good idea was "argue on Reddit all day."

They go inside, and it's another familiar little ballet of moving around the kitchen, putting things away, piling dishes in the sink to deal with later. (Maybe he really will. Or maybe they'll sit for two weeks. Hard to say.) Once they're done, Mulder waves her on outside again.

He doesn't walk too close to her, doesn't try to put a hand on her back to guide her towards the right patch of overgrown land. His hands stay in his pockets as he leads them out to the garden, where plenty of plants grow - with weeds poking in between them - and a few still bloom. Lavender, phlox, a few different plants that look like daisies but technically have different names.

The distance is always more conspicuous than the closeness, especially coming on the heels of how smoothly he steps around her in the kitchen. It's like-- well, like it's not about her, she thinks. Best guess is: he's worried he'll be too familiar.

But the truth is, she misses it. Which might say something about how abnormal her expectations are, the casual intimacy they've nearly always taken for granted. It all makes sense, but it pushes her a little closer to the question she doesn't want to ask. Not the if-- they were together-- or the what-- she left-- but the why.

The lavender has gone a bit woody, unpruned and wild for-- she doesn't know enough about plants to guess, but surely it doesn't grow that big in a year. It's still spotted with deep purple flowers, though, and she stoops to breathe the scent in, eyes shut, lips curved in a smile.

"It's beautiful," she says. It still is; and she can see how beautiful it must have been in its full glory. "You should keep the flowers."

In summer, it's a riot of colors he can't see - but he knows the scents, has come to appreciate even the ones he doesn't think smell great. (Looking at you, marigolds.) And Scully had loved it; they'd spent more than one evening just like this, looking on at the plants and wandering through them, talking about them, picking the ripe vegetables.

It had been his little project, housewife stuff to keep him busy while she worked. Genuinely interesting, but eventually, it felt like busywork. Everything had; everything, save Scully, still does. The more things change, the more Mulder stays the same.

"Maybe I will," he answers wistfully, letting himself linger a little nearer as he breaks off the end of a stalk of lavender and holds it up in the sunlight. It really was pretty good, as gardens go. So many things were pretty good, until they fell apart. "I'm going to have to think of some new ones to add."

Really, she's never thought much about flowers-- she likes them well enough in a bouquet, the occasional tasteful pattern on something. But this must be, must have been, incredible-- once upon a time. It doesn't seem like something he'd choose except that you can tell from the traces that it was done in a Mulder way-- whole-hearted and obsessive and intense.

"I wouldn't know what to suggest." A little regretful-- she'd like to help him find some spark of interest in this. There's something good about the routine of caring for other living things, after all. She sidles a little closer, not enough-- she hopes-- to spook him.

"We should go in-- if the laundry's done I'm going to take a shower, and maybe you could find another movie or something?"

Honestly if she had her way she'd like him to lay his head on her shoulder and get some actual rest, but somehow that seems like it'd be a hard sell.

Well, maybe it'll be more vegetables after all. Endless grilled zucchini, but this time on his own. Planting flowers had so much to do with Scully that he's not sure it's worth keeping up without her.

"Sure." As they head back, walking together but far enough apart that it's not together, he asks, "What are you in the mood for?"

"Maybe something a little quieter? I liked the last one, but... less car chases tonight." She pauses, considering. "Show me something you like." Frankly, even if he just put on a game of... whatever sport is in season, that'd be fine. The sneaky aim here is to get Mulder to relax.

Getting Mulder to relax is usually pretty difficult, though. Even out here it feels like two steps forward, one back. Maybe he has a seed catalog-- do they still have those?-- to pick flowers out of. Or maybe it's a terrible idea; maybe he doesn't need reminders of two lost Scullys every time he looks out the window.

"Something I like," he repeats, caught between amusement and the strange awareness that he can't remember the last time he watched a new movie and liked it. Or even the last time he watched a new movie. There's been a lot of short-form videos of crazies ranting - he's been counting it as research - and the occasional rewatch of old favourites, but not much else.

It feels pathetic, thinking of it. If nothing else, it's easy to see just why Scully'd turn tail and run. "I'll find something."

By the time she finishes getting freshened up, he's got the TV on - and he's back on his phone, though in his defense, he's reading an ebook this time. He'd scrolled for a while, but he kept coming back to the same title, unable to find something that sounded better and unwilling to consider why this one spoke to him in the moment. So they're watching a man separated from his family, hiding out in the ruins of his hometown in a desperate attempt to survive - and if The Pianist ends up being too dark, he figures they can always change it.

He must like something, she figures, or at least have a better idea of what'd be good background noise. It's hard to be specific when you're near twenty years out of date.

First things first-- she drags everything out of the dryer to take upstairs, because she needs a shower. The stuff that's his, she can fold later; she'll do another load too, but that can wait until tomorrow. Most importantly she's found a big, still-reasonably-fluffy towel, and for a while she tries not to think about the past or the future or anything but warm water on exhausted muscles.

Eventually she heads back downstairs-- hair not dripping but still wet, smelling like his soap and her new shampoo. In her new pyjama pants and one of the t-shirts-- somehow fully sleepwear seemed too vulnerable, but jeans too heavy-- she comes to join him on the couch.

"So much better," she admits.

He smiles at the sight of her, like something out of a dream or memory: baby-faced, her hair falling damp around her face, eyes big and gentle. It's hard not to feel fifteen years younger, like he could look in the mirror without seeing a single wrinkle. How many times did they sit on the couch together, watching movies and trash TV, unwinding from the chaos of their work? How did they move so far away from that in the interim?

Mulder knows the answer, but he doesn't want to think about it. Tonight, he just wants to exist in this not-quite-youthful space with her.

"This one's a tearjerker," he tells her, before he hits play. She can bow out and demand The Wolf of Wall Street, if she decides she wants to. "Think you're up for that?"

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