Chapter Text
Scully was not answering her phone.
Listening to it ring, Mulder leaned over his aquarium and fed his fish, watching their round mouths pop open as they sucked down their dinner and then swam away, returning to their fish things.
The phone stopped ringing and clicked over to the static of an open line. "Scully?" he asked, falling back onto the couch so he could watch the fish, their tails swaying back and forth, scales catching the light as they moved through the purple water.
"Mulder...dammit!"
It was Scully, but it sounded like she wasn't even in the same room as the phone.
"Scully?"
A crash. A curse. Some crunching. "Fuck!"
"Scully?" He was getting worried, but she laughed wherever she was and said his name a couple of times.
"Mulder," and now she was right up close, right next to him, "this thing is so fucked up."
He grinned. "What is?"
"This answering machine! I swear it's possessed. It keeps turning the intercom on, and the tape won't rewind, and it won't let me answer the phone. Doug left me a message--" More laughing. "He sounded like a Smurf!"
"How is Doug?" Mulder asked, kicking one leg over the arm of the couch and toeing his shoes off.
"He could have been appointed ambassador to Spain as far as this piece of junk is concerned. It might not even have been Doug." She sighed and one last laugh slipped out like a hiccup. "I guess I'm going shopping for an answering machine tomorrow."
"I've got a date," he announced, baiting her a little.
"So what's new there, Fabio?"
If she had been there, he would have stuck his tongue out at her. "I'm going biking with Sue."
"Mulder, you don't bike, and who is Sue?"
"I bike!" he protested. "I own an actual bike. I've ridden it."
"Does it have a banana seat? And streamers from the handlebars?"
"And a white basket with a big daisy on the front," he added.
"I'm sure Sue will be very impressed."
"I like her, Scully. I had dinner with her tonight and she's great. She owns her own bike shop."
"A second date. She must be special then." Scully sounded far away again. After a moment she came back with a laugh. "Plus you remembered her name, which is a good sign."
"Hey, that only happened the once, with--"
"What's-her-name?" Scully suggested.
"Yeah, her," he agreed, wondering what was her name.
"Well, have fun with Sue, Mulder." A long plastic squeal. "Meanwhile, I'll be replacing my answering machine. If you need me, use my cell, otherwise I might mistake you for Doug."
"Scully, you know I'm not worldly enough to be Doug."
She sighed. "Believe me, I know." And she laughed again, and then the usual pause arrived, quiet and awkward, where other people would say "good-bye," but they never did. It passed and he hung up, watching his fish and thinking of Sue.
*****
Mulder was lit up like Christmas and he'd been that way all week.
At her desk, Scully picked up her phone and someone inside it said, "Where are you?" She opened her mouth to say "the office" or even "what?" but an entirely different female voice replied, "I'm downstairs. Give me a minute." The male voice laughed and said, "You've got thirty seconds."
Scully shook the receiver, trying to free the people who were apparently trapped there, but one or both of them had hung up and instead of a dialtone she heard a clicking sound followed by a ringing. "Hello?" the phone said. The same male voice said, "Sarah's on her way up. I'll get those maps to you before we leave."
Scully sighed, hung up and swiveled on her chair to face Mulder's desk.
"Mulder, if I told you Sarah was coming up and some guy was bringing maps, what would you say?"
Mulder was leaning back on his chair, arms stretched out and fingers tapping at his computer keyboard. "Sarah?" he asked. "Is she cute?"
Scully sighed again. "She's a Playboy bunny, Mulder."
"Tell her I'm spoken for," Mulder said, not looking away from his computer.
Scully reached a hand around and pulled Mulder's monitor to face her. The wrong Tetris shape slid down the screen to balance inappropriately on a growing center tower. "Well, thank god you're taking care of the Tetris portion of our assignment," Scully said, spinning the monitor back toward Mulder. "I was really hoping you'd take it off my hands."
"I aim to please," Mulder said. His computer played a little Russian song.
"I'm using your phone," Scully said, using Mulder's phone. She dialed the bureau operator and tipped the mouthpiece up in the air so she could talk while waiting for the earpiece to stop singing about being on hold. "You're spoken for, are you?"
"I'm a kept man," Mulder said. "I am taken."
"You mean you've been had," Scully said, enjoying his moony expression. "How many times have you gone out with this one?"
"Twice," Mulder said. "No, thrice. No, four times. Five times, including today."
"By my count," Scully said, "we're at more like seven times."
"You're counting?" Mulder turned away from Tetris to raise an eyebrow at Scully.
The phone was playing "Wonderful Tonight" on the marimba and Scully resisted the urge to hum along. "She's really that great?" she asked.
"You'll love her," Mulder said. "She's really that great."
Scully shot him a look. "I'll love her? I get to meet her? The future Mrs. Fox Mulder?"
The marimba stopped, replaced by a bored woman who said, "Front desk."
"When?" Scully asked Mulder.
"Excuse me?" the operator went on, still bored.
"Today. For lunch," Mulder said. "Don't tell me you forgot."
"I forgot," Scully said, not sure if she'd ever known.
"Well, call me back when you remember," the bored woman said, and hung up.
Scully wedged the phone between her ear and her shoulder and leaned in across Mulder's desk. "I'm having lunch with this woman this afternoon?" she asked. For some reason the combination of Mulder's smile, distractibility, and boyish infatuation made her wish she'd worn a less grey suit today.
"It was Sue's idea," Mulder said. "She wants to know all the facets of my life."
Scully rolled her eyes. "All the facets of your life, huh? Did you tell her about Uncle Flukeman and Cousin Goatsucker?"
Mulder returned to his Tetris, still smiling and unfazed. "You'll like her," he said. "You'll see."
"If you'd like to make a call," the phone said, "please hang up and try again. If you need help, hang up and then dial your operator. This is a recording."
"Hmpf," Scully said, and hung up the phone.
*****
Au Bon Pain was busy as usual and Scully stopped in the doorway to get her bearings. Along the front window, a line of government employees sat perched at the counter, dripping soup on their newspapers while they read about Clinton and the increasing possibility of his impeachment. The tables were filled with people eating salads and sandwiches, their coats and hats piled up on extra chairs, their faces red over hot cups of coffee and tea. The area before the cash registers looked like the floor of the New York stock exchange, people calling out orders and prices and extra mustard and then waving their hands and changing their minds and starting all over again.
Mulder was eagerly pushing through the crowd, headed towards a blonde woman wearing a bright yellow and purple polarfleece vest. She called out "Mulder" in a throaty voice and hopped up to hug him, arms around his neck, lips pressed to his. She was just the right height that she could kiss him without having to stretch. He whispered something in her ear and they both turned to look at Scully.
"Scully, get over here," Mulder called, one hand gesturing broadly while the other played with Sue's ponytail. Sue grinned and waved at her.
A cold gust of air and three more people came through the door, forcing Scully to move forward just as Mulder started gesturing again.
"Scuhlee," he whined. Sue giggled. "We haven't got all day."
Dodging elbows and umbrellas and briefcases and chair legs, Scully tucked her gloves in her pocket and unwrapped her scarf from her neck. "Sorry, Mulder, it's just so rare that you let me out of the basement. I'd forgotten what food smells like."
Sue giggled again, and Mulder made the introductions. "Sue Anthony, meet the fabulous Dana Scully."
Scully extended a hand and Sue took it in both of her own, already talking. "Mulder's told me so much about you, oh, your hands are freezing! You need soup. Bring us soup, Mulder." She was smiling and talking and laughing, and these were all good things, things Mulder must have needed in his life, because he was smiling and laughing too.
"No, wait," Sue said, putting one hand up like a traffic cop, still holding on to Scully with the other, "no soup. Maybe--" She tilted her head to the side. "I want, a sandwich, with spinach. And cheese. Oh! One of those spinach croissant things!" She grabbed Mulder's arm. "Can you do that for me, Mulder?"
Mulder was grinning like a fool. Scully just stared at him. He looked back at her and for a moment he didn't seem to recognize her, like he was sure he knew her from somewhere, had maybe worked a case with her once, or gotten introduced to her at a party at a friend of a friend's. He finally asked, "What can I get you, Scully?"
Feeling like the head cheerleader's nerdy best friend, Scully peered over her shoulder at the blackboard menu. She sighed. "Soup does sound good, and they have that bean one I like."
"Ohhh," Mulder groaned, "you always get the bean soup."
"Let her have her bean soup!" Sue campaigned. "It's cold outside and soup's good for you." Her voice turned conspiratorial. "Unlike the things in his refrigerator," she confided to Scully. "It's disgusting in there."
Mulder blinked at them. "You two are going to talk about me, aren't you?" he asked, as if it had just then occurred to him.
"Yes!" Sue answered, shooing him off. "Now go get us lunch." She squeezed Scully's hand and directed her to their table. "Now what do I call you? Scully? Dana? Mulder has that whole Fox thing going on, and my full name is actually Susan Anthony. So as you could imagine, I'm easy on names." She rolled her eyes.
"Um," Scully looked for Mulder. He was actually chatting with someone in line. "Either is good," she said, smiling at Sue. "Scully or Dana."
"Great," Sue enthused. "You know, maybe I should have gotten soup too. Except I was just at the dentist and my mouth's all gritty from that toothpaste stuff and ugh, nothing tastes good after that, and I was thinking spinach is so metallic anyway it might overpower the gritty mint taste." She craned her neck, searching for Mulder. "Do you think it's too late to change my order?"
Mulder was waiting by the pick-up counter. When he saw Sue looking his way, he waved at her.
"He's such a sweetie," Sue sighed.
Scully felt sure this wasn't happening.
Sue turned her startlingly green eyes back to Scully and started off on another story while playing with a straw wrapper. "So I was telling Fitz about Mulder--"
"Fitz?" Scully repeated, thinking it was either her dog or her guru.
"Fitz is my dentist," she explained. "Actually he's Dr. Fitzpatrick, but everyone calls him Fitz. He's really cute." She pretended to swoon.
"Dr. Fitz over on I Street?" Scully asked, something in this conversation finally making sense.
"Yes! Short brown hair, goatee?" Sue leaned in like they were sharing a great secret.
Scully nodded. "I go to him too."
"Neat," Sue said, rearranging herself in her seat, bringing her legs up to sit with one knee under her chin. "Just think, last month we could have been sitting in the waiting room together, and now here I am dating your partner."
"I hear," Mulder said, showing up with their lunch, "that her partner is a great guy."
Scully grabbed her crackers from him. "You'll believe anything, Mulder."
"It's true," Mulder said agreeably.
"Mulder, guess what," Sue quizzed, pulling at the cheese in her sandwich. "Scully and I go to the same dentist. Isn't that cool?"
"Is this the cute guy with the tattoo?" Mulder asked, chewing on his red coffee stirrer and doing something complicated with his ham and Swiss.
This time Scully leaned in. "He's got a tattoo?"
"Yep, on his calf, I made him show me. It's green. He designed it himself." Sue raised her eyebrows.
"Hey now," Mulder said, squeezing Sue, "you two need to remember who's paying for your lunch, and it ain't some tattooed dentist."
"But he plays the double bass in a jazz band on the weekends," Sue said in a rush, dodging away from Mulder and giggling.
"That's it," he said. "You will both need to find a new dentist, an old, unattractive, bald one."
"Poor Mulder," Sue cooed. "Did we forget to mention Fitz is married and has a three-month-old baby? Here, we'll talk about you now. How's your day going?"
Scully finished her bean soup while Mulder and Sue discussed a new bike path they wanted to try. Mulder wasn't looking at anything but Sue. Completely absorbed with her, he was playing with her hair again, pulling it away from the fleece vest and causing little static hisses and pops. When his cell rang, he looked surprised, unable to place the noise.
"You're ringing," Sue pointed out.
Mulder dug his phone out from his pocket and checked the display. "Um, Scully, is there something you need to tell me?"
Scully frowned. "What?"
He tilted his phone so she could read the number of the incoming call. It was hers.
"Because," Mulder went on, "I'm right here, you know, and you can always talk to me, no matter how personal or embarrassing or kinky--"
"Mulder, please shut up," Scully requested, reaching for her coat.
"Who is it?" Sue asked.
Scully pulled her phone out and found it had somehow dialed Mulder while sitting in her coat pocket. "Apparently, it's me," she said, ending the call.
"How adorable!" Sue laughed, hugging Mulder's arm. "Scully's phone called yours. It must have been lonely!"
Sue laughed again and Mulder beamed at her. In seven years, Scully had never seen that look on his face. She thought it must be love.