Chapter Text
It only got colder in the days before Thanksgiving, with plenty of excuses to stay in and stay by the fire with Sue who made some mean spiked cider. Because Sue said she liked the smell, Mulder even tried smoking cigars again. She had a box of big fat Cubans her brother had brought back from some trip he'd taken, and she offered Mulder one the first night he spent at her house. "Your brother...David?" he'd tried.
She shook her head. "No, Adam."
"He's the one in France?"
"No, that's John," Sue chuckled. "Adam's out on the West Coast. I don't know if you'll get to meet him."
"Oh, I'll probably meet him someday," Mulder had said with a grin. Sue slipped up behind him and kissed him on the ear.
But her sister Julie was coming for Thanksgiving, all the way down from Providence, and her parents were coming in from Chevy Chase and someone was bringing a turkey.
Thursday morning Sue fed Mulder cranberries in his sleep. Comforter half-off and dozing in her bed he'd heard "taste this" so he opened his mouth without opening his eyes.
"Aaaah! Ptui!" He struggled to his feet and spat into his hand trying to save the juice from dripping onto the white sheets. "Tart!"
"What did you call me?" Sue asked, wryly. Mulder blinked up at her, standing there towering over him with her hands on her hips and an apron that read "Burn Toast, Not Books."
"What time is it?" he asked, lumbering past her to shake the chewed cranbits into the trash can.
"Noon," she said. "Julie will be here in two hours and Mom and Dad will be here before four. You need to come cheer me on while I try and repair that cranberry sauce."
"Okay," Mulder said. "Let me put a shirt on."
Sue shook her head, grinning evilly. "Please don't. It will make for a more pleasant cooking experience for me."
She was wide awake, and Mulder rubbed his eyes to get a better look at her. Her fingers were pink from cranberries, her hair pulled back into a knot stuck through with a plastic chopstick and sticking out in blonde spikes like an exploding star. There was flour on her cheek, and Mulder crossed to her, licked a thumb and wiped it clean.
Sue reached up and took his hand, pulled it to her hip and leaned in to kiss him. "There's coffee," she said after she'd pulled away. "I'll be in the kitchen."
Mulder sank to the bed and watched her leave. Thanksgiving. With Sue's family, just like normal people, having cranberry sauce and turkey and pie. Mulder couldn't remember the last time he'd had Thanksgiving like normal people, much less the last time he'd been introduced as someone's boyfriend to someone's normal parents. But a sister was coming, and normal parents named Marty and Carol, and Mulder was almost positive he'd find himself watching the football game. And Sue was in the kitchen and wanted him there with her, watching her fix normal Thanksgiving food, without a shirt on.
With a smile, he went into the bathroom to brush his teeth.
*****
"So tell me," Mr. Anthony said, toasting Mulder with a forkful of cornbread stuffing. "What is it you do for the FBI, exactly? Sue's implied it's something quite important."
Mulder smiled at Sue's father while he tried to come up with some appropriate words. "I, uh, work for a department that analyzes unexplained phenomena."
This seemed to be enough for him, but Julie asked, "Are they really hiding something at Area 51?" She elbowed Mulder a little too hard in the ribs. "Come on, tell us the truth."
"Oh, that's classified," Mulder chuckled, winking past Julie at Sue, who was too far away for his liking, way down at the head of the table. Sue winked back.
"I knew it!" Julie said, slapping the table so hard the plates clattered. "I knew it."
"Fox," said Sue's mother. "You need to eat more. Have another yam."
For the third time since dinner had started, Mulder shook his head politely. "Thanks, Mrs. Anthony. But I'm stuffed already on your superb cooking."
"Mo-om!" Sue screwed her face into a pout. "He wants to be called 'Mulder.' I told you eight times."
"Don't torture your mother," Mulder said. "Mrs. Anthony, you're welcome to call me whatever you like."
Mrs. Anthony beamed. "Well then!" she said. "You can call me Carol. I insist."
Twenty minutes later the plates were cleared and the Anthonys had all retired to the living room, even when Mulder insisted on helping do the dishes.
"We'll do 'em tomorrow," Sue had whispered. "Or later tonight. I want to show you off to my family some more."
They were all obscenely nice, incredibly pleasant, well-mannered and witty people, but Mulder found himself wishing for those nights he was here alone with Sue, in the quiet, by the fire, without three blonde family members firing questions at him. With no interest in insulting the family of his lovely girlfriend, Mulder sank into the armchair with Sue in his lap.
"You lived up here, right?" Julie asked, rattling ice in a glass that used to contain scotch.
"Up here where? Arlington?" Mulder asked.
Sue leaned back into Mulder's chest and he crossed his arms below her breasts and peered over her shoulder at Julie.
Julie giggled, sounding just like her younger sister. "I'm clearly losing my mind," she said. "Up here Rhode Island, I meant. I forgot I wasn't home." She pointed a bitten fingernail at the framed John Lennon photograph above Sue's couch. "I have that same poster," she said, as if that explained everything.
Sue snickered, and Mulder felt the resonance in his chest. "I know you do, honey," Sue said to her sister. "You gave me this one."
Mulder cut in. "When I was little, we had a summer house in Quonochontaug."
"Mmm," Julie nodded knowingly. "Very swank."
"So your folks are wealthy, then?" Mr. Anthony clucked his tongue.
"Be nice!" Mrs. Anthony hissed, giving her husband a light slap. She turned to Mulder. "I'm sure you had a very nice upbringing," she said, with a vacant nod.
Mulder resisted the urge to laugh, and instead kissed Sue between the shoulderblades. "Yes," he said. Sue squeezed his hand.
"And your parents still live up there?" Julie asked.
"My mom lives in Connecticut," Mulder said. "My father passed away a few years ago."
All the Anthonys "mmm"ed and nodded solemnly.
"Cancer?" Mrs. Anthony whispered.
"No, but he was murdered by a renegade operative who might have been working for a guy who's going to die of cancer," Mulder didn't say.
Sue rescued him. "Please, mom!"
Mrs. Anthony held her hands up, palms out, maybe to show she didn't have any small firearms. "I apologize," she said. "We lost my brother to cancer back in '94. It's very hard on a family."
"It is," Mulder said, knowing that, at the very least, that was a true statement. "Very hard."
"Hey Fox!" Mr. Anthony said, as if Mulder were an old friend he hadn't seen in years. "How's about you join me in a cigar? I know Sue has that box Adam sent tucked away somewhere."
Mulder smiled, shifting in his seat to move Sue's weight to his other thigh. "I'll pass," he said. "But thank you. I've had one. It's a very nice smoke."
Mr. Anthony stood up from the couch. He pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his nose and looked at Sue. "So where do you have those things hidden?"
"I'll show you," Sue said, pulling herself to her feet. Mulder's legs tingled.
They exited the room, leaving Mulder in silence, smiling from Julie to Carol and back again. Carol, on the couch, and Julie, crosslegged on the floor, smiled back. Mulder's chin hurt from all the smiling.
"I think," he said, "I'm going to go out for some air. I'll be...right back." He caught himself before saying "I'll be back in a jif," and winced at the fact that the words had even formed in his brain. He'd definitely spent too long with this strange and happy family.
Outside it was brisk and clear, and Mulder had forgotten his jacket. He sat on the stoop and rubbed his hands together, listening to the horn of a distant car and the howling of wind through the taller trees.
Two weeks of normalcy, even with someone as wonderful as Sue, grated on a man who was more used to half-nights slept on the couch and microwaved dinners that came in little segmented dishes. He wasn't sure if he missed that or not.
He felt the screen door open, the corner of it catching him in the arm, and he looked up to see Sue standing over him, holding his jacket.
"It's freezing out here, Mulder," she said. "Put this on."
He took it from her gratefully and stood up.
"You coming back in?" she asked, nudging at his arm with her head so he'd lift it up and hold her to him, which he did.
The sky was cloudless, unseasonably clear and the stars pocked the black in crystal clarity. Mulder took Sue's hand and used it to point skyward, closing one eye and staring down the length of her arm like a rifle sight. "See that?"
Sue stood on tiptoe, aligning her head with his. "See what?"
"Pisces," Mulder said. "Fairly easy constellation to see this time of year."
"Cool!" Sue said, squinting for a better view. "John's a Pisces. I got him fish for his birthday, once. You know, because, Pisces? Fish? Hey, you have fish! Is someone feeding them? And, do they have names? I meant to ask."
Mulder wrapped his arms around Sue and kissed her on the forehead. "I feed them every day after work before I come over here," he said. "Bet they're hungry tonight, though. And, yes, they do have names."
Sue slipped the tips of her fingers into the waistband of Mulder's pants. "Tell me," she said.
"The big one's Fido, the two with the red heads are Leviathan and Spike, and the little one is Land Shark."
"Land shark!" Sue snorted. "Um...delivery! Candygram!"
"Exactly," Mulder said.
Sue had slid her arms up inside Mulder's jacket and she was tugging at his shirt to free it from under his belt. He raked his fingers through her hair and kissed her again.
"Hey!" Sue said. "Your pocket is vibrating."
Mulder reached down to retrieve his cell phone. "I turned the ringer off," he explained. "I hope someone hasn't been trying to reach me."
"Mulder?" Scully's voice sounded anxious, or maybe eager.
"Yeah," he said. "What's up, Scully?"
"I just got a call from Skinner. He has a case for us."
"He's going behind Kersh's back?" Mulder asked. Sue blew in his ear and he shivered and smiled.
"No, he went through Kersh. We have a briefing first thing in the morning. He tried to call you but he couldn't get through."
"I had the sound off," Mulder said. "I'm still at Thanksgiving dinner."
There was a pause, and something at Scully's end clattered. "Oh," she said. "I got home from Mom's a couple hours ago. I hope I'm not interrupting."
Sue was snuffling at Mulder's ear and had succeeded in pulling his shirt free, so her nails were tracing lines down his bare back. The cold air cut in and Mulder felt gooseflesh rising on his arms.
"No," he said. "No problem. What time tomorrow?"
Another pause.
"You still having phone trouble, Scully?"
"Yeah," she said. "Well, not as much. It's all right. I'll see you at eight in Kersh's office, okay?"
Mulder tipped the phone away from his mouth to kiss Sue, and then freed himself from her embrace. "Yeah, Scully," he said. "Eight o'clock. See you then."
It was possible she had already hung up by the time he said "good night."
Sue tipped her head and peered at him. "Everything all right?" she asked.
Mulder inhaled through his nose and puffed out his chest, feeling the wintry air like ice. "Yup," he said. "I've got a meeting tomorrow. But everything's good."
Tucking his shirt back in with one hand, he pulled Sue close to him with the other and brushed a thumb across her forehead. Her eyes sparkled.
"Everything's great," he said. "Let's get back inside before your parents think I've run off with you."
"Good idea," Sue said, circling him to open the door. "They'll be leaving soon anyway. And then we can..." Over her shoulder, she threw him a conspiratorial smirk.
"And then we can," Mulder said, slipping in after her and letting the door shut behind them.