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."
Honestly she barely waits for permission; it's good to know, really, that things are still more or less where she expects them to be. He could easily have taken over the empty drawers, moved things around.
She shrugs out of her blouse and bra with no trace of self- consciousness, leaving them folded on his dresser. More than anything, sliding into the too-big shirt puts her at ease, the familiar scent of what she still thinks of as home clinging to the worn fabric.
Slacks folded alongside her top, she moves bare-legged to what she can't help thinking of as her side of the bed. It should feel more momentous than it does, or more strange, but maybe she's too tired for anything to feel remarkable.
She slides into the bed. Part of her wants to tell him how much she's missed this-- missed him-- but putting it into words does feel too much. She can manage the action, at least, scooting closer as he settles.
"I'd write to the Commander in Chief, but as far as I'm concerned, we don't have one." He crawls into bed, and it's like he's slipped into another world for a moment. Not like falling into the past - he was mostly okay with the president last time they both lived here - but some other time entirely, when he's still pushing sixty but his bed somehow smells faintly like Scully's shampoo.
It's now, is the strange thing, just a now he never thought he'd experience again. Some part of him spent years waiting for an invitation to an awkward coffee not-date, an opportunity to meet the real love of Dana Scully's life and talk about what they need to do to finally get the house in his name alone. He was certain that someday, she was going to find someone else, and they'd be strangers on the street to each other. But it never happened, and instead, it's deja-vu all over again.
She moves closer, and he rolls onto his side, wrapping an arm around her waist. He's going to wake up with her hair in his mouth, he can already feel it, but he's going to dream about holding onto her, his face buried against the nape of her neck. His voice is already going sleep-thick at the edges when he mumbles, "Scully?"
Maybe she could have moved on, if she'd wanted. If she worked for it. She never thought of the people she dated as long-term prospects, and frankly if any of them had wanted that, she might have fled. The excuses would be easy to make: she worked too much, she was too old, she couldn't offer anyone a family.
More than once she'd considered making a cleaner break, not because she wanted it but because she thought he deserved it. That if she couldn't stay with him she ought to set him free; their lingering legal entanglements were a lifeline to check in on him, to meddle, an excuse to talk to him when they had so many reasons to avoid each other.
When she left, it wasn't because she wanted to. She'd never quite known if he understood that, if it would even matter to him. Now-- years later, in their bed again, in his arms-- she can only feel incredibly fortunate. Forgiven, maybe. But lucky above all else.
"Yeah, Mulder?" She mumbles back. She laces her fingers with his, yawning against his pillow.
Mulder hadn't actually thought ahead to what he'd follow up her name with; he just hadn't wanted to stop talking, despite the fact that he's crashing hard. Sleeping's great, sure, but now that he's got an arm wrapped around Scully, he doesn't actually want to miss a moment of lying here beside her.
There's a relevant but truly terrible Aerosmith song he's resolutely not thinking about.
But now she's waiting, and he should probably say something. Anything. (Well, anything besides I love you, which seems like a one-way ticket back to lazing around in bed alone. Besides, she knows.) He dips his head, kissing the edge of a shoulder blade. "'m glad you're here."
She knows. Saying it would probably be too much, too soon; she hopes he knows she loves him, too; enough that it's always scared her, enough that it's worth it in spite of that.
Humming a soft agreement she reaches up blindly, stroking the rough stubble on his cheek. It's so familiar, to have her back pressed to the warm breadth of his chest; she's always felt so safe with him, in a way nothing else quite measures up to. And she's aware, too, of how long it's been since they could be here, like this. Being here doesn't feel like slipping back into the past; they've both changed, and she'd like to think for the better.
"Me, too," she sighs.
And what she means is more complicated than that-- something like, I'm glad we're able to be here, together, that we can be good for each other, at least this much, because she isn't quite sure what any of this means long-term. But she's glad she's here with him, either way.
"Maybe," she murmurs drowsily, "less property damage next time."
"We can wreck the house -" not mine or ours, seems too decisive even when his breathing's evening out - "next time."
One more kiss, this time to the sharp angle of her jaw, just under her ear, his stubbly chin dragging against her skin. And then he's dozing off, asleep until lunchtime, snoring lightly into her hair.
If she were more awake, she might point out that the furniture downstairs wasn't exactly an unprompted redecorating spree. But she's not nearly that awake, and soon, she's not awake at all.
As long as she's known him, Mulder has tended towards insomnia; Scully, meanwhile, is a champion at finding odd moments and places to snatch some rest, a habit absolutely essential to her educational career, and extremely useful in any number of cars, planes, and terrible motels over the years. It's a little different to curl up together in the middle of the day, though, and if they weren't both dead tired from an all-night date-cum-survival adventure, this would feel wildly indulgent.
Actually--it still feels pretty luxurious, she thinks, when she eventually starts to surface. The last vestiges of her mascara have ruined Mulder's pillowcase, his breath is rustling her hair, and it's perfect. She tugs his arm a little closer around her.
Mulder sleeps, and eventually he wakes to the sensation of his arm being pulled nearer, and he's pretty sure this is the closest he'll ever get to understanding what Scully feels when she walks into a church. Opening his eyes and finding sunlit hair and soft curves under his hands is a miracle.
He's still groggy, but it's the kind of muzzy sleepiness that means they could lie here all day and it'd be the best use of their time Mulder could think of.
"Hey," he murmurs, and this kiss ends up in her hair, pressed somewhere around the base of her skull. "You awake?"
It's nice to wake up soft and fond and unhurried; she rolls a little, shoulder against his chest, so she can look at him.
"I think so," she says around a yawn. The unguarded, admiring way he looks at her when she's just woken up is one of those funny things she never expected she'd miss so much.
Reaching up to stroke his cheek she pulls him closer for a proper kiss, which is probably a terrible idea; she imagines she tastes like sleep and stale coffee. But she wants to, anyway.
She tastes like Scully, and he's never been opposed to that; the memory of bad diner coffee can't mask the reality of her, here and now. She's grown sharper over the years, the angles of her body given new definition, and he knows he's grown softer. But not less agile, for the most part, maneuvering as he kisses her until he's half atop her.
He wants to see her face, is the thing, without neck strain for either of them. And he misses the feeling of her body tangled up with his, specifically here, somewhere between Mulder's Side and Scully's Side of the bed. She's radiant in the sunlight, a golden glow in a world that's muddy brown more often than not. And for a moment, all he can do is look at her.
I missed you, he wants to say. I missed this. Instead, he dips his head to kiss her again.
Time has changed them both, but their time apart, somehow, has not changed the way they fit together. Instinctively greedy in her groggy state, Scully leans up into his kisses, shifting to make room for his knees, sliding an arm up over his shoulders. They could spend the day like this: aimlessly together in a nest of blankets until they need to eat again, and then, back to bed.
Ignore all the big questions of what this means, how long she's staying, where they stand: just enjoy each other and the time they have together.
She sighs against his mouth, her other hand stroking his jaw. How can anyone be so lucky-- not just to have this, but to have it again?
They could spend all day like this, and he has half a mind to, if the hand sliding up under her shirt - his shirt - is any evidence. Mulder wants so badly to rechristen this bed in both their names, like breaking a champagne bottle against a new ship. It's ours again, he'll think to himself, and even if Scully leaves and never comes back, he's starting to think that he'll never bring another person back to this room. When he kisses her, he remembers just how poorly the rest of the world compares when stacked up against her.
And he could keep all those thoughts to himself. They could fuck, and his house would be her house again, in more than just a well, your name's still on the deed kind of way, and when her glassy condo is fixed, she can go on her way and maybe come back to mess around occasionally. It could be something quiet and true, and as long as they kept seeing each other, Mulder has to believe he'd be happy. He's been happy, being around her again. And that's what he wants, as his body softens and 'middle age' starts to sound like a polite untruth: happiness.
But he wants the truth, too, and he's never been known for leaving well enough alone.
"Scully," he mumbles against her throat, the same moment that he palms one breast under cover of one of his better-loved t-shirts, "are you gonna stay with me?"
Freezing is probably not, objectively, the worst thing she could do, but Scully suspects it ranks pretty high on the list. It doesn't last long-- almost reflexively she reaches to grab his wrist through the fabric of her shirt-- his shirt-- to keep him from pulling his hand away from her skin.
"Do you really want to have this conversation now?"
A lifetime ago that might have been teasing and coy; now, it's a little bit resigned. She knows him too well, and if he's stuck on this topic now-- with his fingers barely an inch from her nipple, their legs threaded together, the familiar, delicious tension of her body a clear message that whatever the future holds, what she wants right now is only him-- if he's asking, there's no chance of distracting him from it. Not with feminine wiles or UFO sightings or an offer to run downstairs and grab her handcuffs.
Her other hand, she threads into his hair, gentle and familiar and sweet. It doesn't mean no, because she doesn't want to say no. But, really, she can't say yes either-- that she'll just stay here and sell her condo and never look back. It isn't that simple, even if she wishes it were that simple.
"I'm right where I want to be now," she murmurs. "Can't we start with that?"
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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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Honestly she barely waits for permission; it's good to know, really, that things are still more or less where she expects them to be. He could easily have taken over the empty drawers, moved things around.
She shrugs out of her blouse and bra with no trace of self- consciousness, leaving them folded on his dresser. More than anything, sliding into the too-big shirt puts her at ease, the familiar scent of what she still thinks of as home clinging to the worn fabric.
Slacks folded alongside her top, she moves bare-legged to what she can't help thinking of as her side of the bed. It should feel more momentous than it does, or more strange, but maybe she's too tired for anything to feel remarkable.
She slides into the bed. Part of her wants to tell him how much she's missed this-- missed him-- but putting it into words does feel too much. She can manage the action, at least, scooting closer as he settles.
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It's now, is the strange thing, just a now he never thought he'd experience again. Some part of him spent years waiting for an invitation to an awkward coffee not-date, an opportunity to meet the real love of Dana Scully's life and talk about what they need to do to finally get the house in his name alone. He was certain that someday, she was going to find someone else, and they'd be strangers on the street to each other. But it never happened, and instead, it's deja-vu all over again.
She moves closer, and he rolls onto his side, wrapping an arm around her waist. He's going to wake up with her hair in his mouth, he can already feel it, but he's going to dream about holding onto her, his face buried against the nape of her neck. His voice is already going sleep-thick at the edges when he mumbles, "Scully?"
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More than once she'd considered making a cleaner break, not because she wanted it but because she thought he deserved it. That if she couldn't stay with him she ought to set him free; their lingering legal entanglements were a lifeline to check in on him, to meddle, an excuse to talk to him when they had so many reasons to avoid each other.
When she left, it wasn't because she wanted to. She'd never quite known if he understood that, if it would even matter to him. Now-- years later, in their bed again, in his arms-- she can only feel incredibly fortunate. Forgiven, maybe. But lucky above all else.
"Yeah, Mulder?" She mumbles back. She laces her fingers with his, yawning against his pillow.
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There's a relevant but truly terrible Aerosmith song he's resolutely not thinking about.
But now she's waiting, and he should probably say something. Anything. (Well, anything besides I love you, which seems like a one-way ticket back to lazing around in bed alone. Besides, she knows.) He dips his head, kissing the edge of a shoulder blade. "'m glad you're here."
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Humming a soft agreement she reaches up blindly, stroking the rough stubble on his cheek. It's so familiar, to have her back pressed to the warm breadth of his chest; she's always felt so safe with him, in a way nothing else quite measures up to. And she's aware, too, of how long it's been since they could be here, like this. Being here doesn't feel like slipping back into the past; they've both changed, and she'd like to think for the better.
"Me, too," she sighs.
And what she means is more complicated than that-- something like, I'm glad we're able to be here, together, that we can be good for each other, at least this much, because she isn't quite sure what any of this means long-term. But she's glad she's here with him, either way.
"Maybe," she murmurs drowsily, "less property damage next time."
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One more kiss, this time to the sharp angle of her jaw, just under her ear, his stubbly chin dragging against her skin. And then he's dozing off, asleep until lunchtime, snoring lightly into her hair.
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As long as she's known him, Mulder has tended towards insomnia; Scully, meanwhile, is a champion at finding odd moments and places to snatch some rest, a habit absolutely essential to her educational career, and extremely useful in any number of cars, planes, and terrible motels over the years. It's a little different to curl up together in the middle of the day, though, and if they weren't both dead tired from an all-night date-cum-survival adventure, this would feel wildly indulgent.
Actually--it still feels pretty luxurious, she thinks, when she eventually starts to surface. The last vestiges of her mascara have ruined Mulder's pillowcase, his breath is rustling her hair, and it's perfect. She tugs his arm a little closer around her.
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He's still groggy, but it's the kind of muzzy sleepiness that means they could lie here all day and it'd be the best use of their time Mulder could think of.
"Hey," he murmurs, and this kiss ends up in her hair, pressed somewhere around the base of her skull. "You awake?"
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"I think so," she says around a yawn. The unguarded, admiring way he looks at her when she's just woken up is one of those funny things she never expected she'd miss so much.
Reaching up to stroke his cheek she pulls him closer for a proper kiss, which is probably a terrible idea; she imagines she tastes like sleep and stale coffee. But she wants to, anyway.
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He wants to see her face, is the thing, without neck strain for either of them. And he misses the feeling of her body tangled up with his, specifically here, somewhere between Mulder's Side and Scully's Side of the bed. She's radiant in the sunlight, a golden glow in a world that's muddy brown more often than not. And for a moment, all he can do is look at her.
I missed you, he wants to say. I missed this. Instead, he dips his head to kiss her again.
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Ignore all the big questions of what this means, how long she's staying, where they stand: just enjoy each other and the time they have together.
She sighs against his mouth, her other hand stroking his jaw. How can anyone be so lucky-- not just to have this, but to have it again?
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And he could keep all those thoughts to himself. They could fuck, and his house would be her house again, in more than just a well, your name's still on the deed kind of way, and when her glassy condo is fixed, she can go on her way and maybe come back to mess around occasionally. It could be something quiet and true, and as long as they kept seeing each other, Mulder has to believe he'd be happy. He's been happy, being around her again. And that's what he wants, as his body softens and 'middle age' starts to sound like a polite untruth: happiness.
But he wants the truth, too, and he's never been known for leaving well enough alone.
"Scully," he mumbles against her throat, the same moment that he palms one breast under cover of one of his better-loved t-shirts, "are you gonna stay with me?"
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"Do you really want to have this conversation now?"
A lifetime ago that might have been teasing and coy; now, it's a little bit resigned. She knows him too well, and if he's stuck on this topic now-- with his fingers barely an inch from her nipple, their legs threaded together, the familiar, delicious tension of her body a clear message that whatever the future holds, what she wants right now is only him-- if he's asking, there's no chance of distracting him from it. Not with feminine wiles or UFO sightings or an offer to run downstairs and grab her handcuffs.
Her other hand, she threads into his hair, gentle and familiar and sweet. It doesn't mean no, because she doesn't want to say no. But, really, she can't say yes either-- that she'll just stay here and sell her condo and never look back. It isn't that simple, even if she wishes it were that simple.
"I'm right where I want to be now," she murmurs. "Can't we start with that?"
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