Chapter Text
"Hey, Scully?"
Mulder was a couple steps ahead of her but he turned around and backed into the curb, nearly falling on his ass.
"Yeah?"
"If anyone asks--" he clapped a hand over the four-inch square of gauze on his neck, "I cut myself shaving. I had to use a machete, because of my iron-like manly stubble."
She widened her eyes and nodded slowly, catching up to him. "Sure, Mulder. If anyone asks, that's exactly what I'll tell them."
Mulder stood on the curb, his neck-gauze glowing an inhuman white under the purple neon sign that read "Cheese Lounge." The music coming from inside -- both cheesy and loungy, no surprise -- seemed oddly appropriate for the dismal night and Scully's escapist mood, and she exhaled, her breath a grey cloud.
Sergeant Harwood had called when they were at the hospital to give them next to no information, saying that the creature hadn't been located but there was no reason to expect the worst.
"The worst being what?" Scully had asked.
"Everything will be fine, Agent Scully," Harwood had said, and hung up.
She'd done what any other partner would have done in her place, Scully knew, climbing the concrete steps into the Cheese Lounge. Mulder could have been killed. She had to shoot the thing.
In the bar, a Barry Manilow wannabe belted out a karaoke version of "Danke Schoen," and Scully prayed silently that they'd find a table as far away from his polyester as possible.
Mulder pushed through red canvas curtains like he'd been here before, crossed to an empty booth and lit the citronella candle before Scully even sat down. He made a show of brushing off the tabletop in front of her, using her napkin for it and then sliding his under the aluminum fork and knife at her placesetting. Scully smiled and wanted pizza. She was tired, tired and cold, and under normal circumstances would be begging Mulder to take her home and let local PD deal with what was left of the Jersey Devil situation, but these weren't normal circumstances. Now home meant Sue, and here, at least, she had Mulder, just for a little while, and the two of them could eat pizza together and Scully could even have a beer and try and forget about the thing she'd shot, the thing that had left her teethmarks in Mulder's neck. She wondered if Sue had ever left teethmarks in Mulder's neck. She figured she'd have noticed.
Mulder flipped open a greasy menu and slid it perpendicular so Scully could look at it too. She tried to focus on the six or seven American-style entrees: chicken fingers, spaghetti and meatballs, lasagne, 16 oz New York Strip Steak, pork chop.
"I wanted a pizza," Mulder said. "Deek promised me there was killer pizza to be had here."
"Flip it--" Scully turned the menu over, and sure enough, pizza was to be had, in all its many splendid iterations. She blinked and read the word "spinach" a couple of times.
"You decide," she said, finally, and with a sigh. Leaning back on the marbleized leather she allowed herself to close her eyes for a moment, allowed the image she'd been fighting to swim into view behind her eyelids.
The thing -- the girl, Scully thought, the Jersey Devil Daughter -- had her arms wrapped around Mulder but she didn't look violent, somehow, she didn't look threatening. She looked afraid. Lonely. She looked like she needed something to cling to.
Scully had her gun cocked before the thing bit Mulder. She didn't let herself wonder if she was just looking for an excuse to shoot.
"Mulder," Scully said, opening her eyes. There was a waitress above her.
"How do you feel about garlic?" Mulder asked.
"It's very good for you," Scully said.
"I think that's a myth," Mulder said. "I'm going to order it anyway. Garlic, mushrooms, pepperoni?"
"Sounds good," Scully said, without enthusiasm. "Thanks."
"Anything to drink, for you?" the waitress asked.
"I'll have a Coke," Mulder said.
"I'll have an Amstel Light," Scully said, actively not meeting Mulder's eye. He made an oooing sound anyway.
And then the waitress was gone and it was just Mulder again, grinning out of the side of his mouth and peering at Scully, his face twisted into a suspicious smirk over the gauze.
"Mulder?" Scully tried again.
"Yes, dear?"
"Are we going home tomorrow like Kersh asked us to?"
"Yeah, I think we are," he said, and for some reason she wanted to pick a fight. Mulder didn't follow rules so easily, and she knew it wasn't Kersh he was going home for.
"You looking forward to it?" she asked, tauntingly.
"Well, I think we've still got some work to do up here." He played with a fork. "But of course I am."
"Looking forward to getting back to Sue?" She wasn't letting him off that easy.
Mulder brightened. "Very much," he said sincerely, nodding a little. "I miss her."
"She really makes you happy." It wasn't a question, but he answered it anyway.
"I think so."
Scully tipped her head and watched him a little, the edges of his nose and mouth twitching with a smile. She tried to smile back. "That's terrific," she said. "You're very lucky."
"You'll--" Mulder began, and Scully's stomach curdled. If he finished the sentence, if he actually said "you'll find someone," she would have to politely excuse herself, up from the table, through the canvas curtains, out into the cold, away into New Jersey where the bikers were. Instead he said, "Thank you, Scully. I'm so glad you like Sue. It really means a lot to me."
"I never said I liked her," Scully thought, but didn't say. And really there was nothing about Sue not to like, nothing not to like and a whole lot to like, most especially the effect she'd had on Mulder. Effect she was having on Mulder, present, progressive. Sue was playful, friendly, outgoing, the kind of woman who talked to strangers and played rec basketball and knew that Dr. Fitzgerald had a green tattoo. Scully felt shrewish, suddenly, reclusive and woefully inadequate compared to this woman who made Mulder smile. A year ago, Mulder stayed home on Saturdays, too. But these days he called Scully "dear" and ordered pizza with garlic because he knew they wouldn't be kissing, just talking.
Of course, that was why he'd had to ask. He'd asked because they'd never ordered garlic together before. At least, Mulder had never ordered garlic in front of Scully. She let herself wonder if it was because he'd always thought that somewhere, someday, some night, maybe, kissing would be an option and he didn't want to screw it up? Either way, there was garlic now, and those days were gone. Her Mulder, the one who made jokes for her benefit only, the one who opened car doors for only Scully, was gone, replaced by a smiling man playing with a fork and thinking about a blonde woman in Arlington. Scully sighed and took a drink from the beer that had somehow materialized in front of her.
The pizza was only fair but it was hot and spicy and evoked some sort of sensory reaction, which was all Scully wanted, anyway. She ordered another beer and listened to Mulder talk about the best bathroom in Madison Square Garden and a story Langly had told him about peanut brittle. She ordered a third beer, or maybe it was a fourth.
After dinner, and back in coats and scarves, they were outside and it wasn't snowing. It wasn't even raining anymore, just cold and crisp and clear with everything smelling like winter as they headed down the sidewalk to the car. The sky was a suburban coastal black, with the stars shining crystal-clear against the backdrop in a way Scully rarely got to see through urban haze. Feeling frivolous, she grabbed Mulder's elbow and pointed to the sky.
"Look, it's Pisces, can you see it?"
Mulder gave her a look she couldn't quite decipher before following the line of her arm and staring up. "I can indeed," he said. "What do you know about Pisces?"
"I'm a Pisces. I know everything there is to know about Pisces."
"Why, Scully," Mulder nudged her with the side of his arm. "I had no idea you bought into that business."
"I don't know if I buy into it, necessarily, but it all made for good reading when I was sixteen and had crushes on high school boys."
"So?" Mulder said, gesturing at the sky.
"Well, we're generally emotional people, introverted, don't like attention. You know, we write in our journals and weep."
Mulder squinted. "Are you sure you're a Pisces?"
Scully pursed her lips and squinted back. "Are you saying I'm not gentle and emotional?"
Mulder threw up his hands. "I plead the fifth," he said.
"You, on the other hand, are a fine Libra."
"I always thought so," Mulder grinned.
"Libras like to be in relationships," Scully said. "They make good lovers. And partners."
"You think?"
"I didn't make it up," she shrugged. "You're the scales, you know, everything in balance; you're lawmakers. You're also highly intelligent, charming, influential...you know, seductive."
Mulder looked back up at the sky, but he'd turned away too fast and Scully wondered if he'd wanted to say something.
Instead, his phone rang, and he reached for his pocket, slapping first the outside of his coat and then the inside, finally finding his cellular tucked in the lining of his sport jacket. He flipped open the phone with a thumb, looked at it, and then threw a glance at Scully, sidelong.
She raised her eyebrows.
"It was you, the call was," he said, clapping the phone shut and returning it to his pocket.
"Me, huh?" Scully withdrew her own phone from her pocket and read the display: CURRENT CALL: 0:21. "How about that."
"Your technical difficulties seem to have followed you across state lines," Mulder nodded.
Scully felt her fingers close around the phone, felt the alcohol pulsing in her veins, looked up at Mulder, and behind him Pisces. "Maybe it's trying to tell me something about Pisces and Libras."
Mulder made a spooky sound. "Ooh, a voice from beyond."
"Pisces and Libras make good friends," she continued, the words spilling out. "Good lovers, too, if I recall my Big Book of Astrology." She didn't know what she was saying anymore, but it was too late to back out now.
"Good partners," Mulder said, winking at her.
He was circling the car to unlock her door before she had a chance to wonder if she'd been complimented or blown off.
*****
In the morning, she still didn't have hot water, so they shared his sink, standing next to each other and carefully not touching. Mulder was warm beside her, leaning in towards the dimpled mirror as he tilted his chin and pulled his razor across the skin of his neck. She brushed her teeth and watched him, the way his chest expanded as he breathed, the way his eyes closed while the razor moved. He'd taken the gauze off at some point, and she could see the messy red edges of his wound.
She didn't want anything to break this moment, this tiny universe they'd created here, her, him, the bathroom with its small window open, the chipped sink, his bare feet, the fact that he'd forgotten his toothpaste and had to use hers. Forever was a long time, but she wanted it.
Drying her face with a handtowel, she met Mulder's gaze in the silvery mirror. He looked away and reached for his own towel.
Last night she had wanted too much. This morning she just wanted another silent minute with him next to her. She wasn't going to get it.
His phone rang and he slipped past her and out the door. Scully looked into the mirror and thought, Sue. She could hear the plastic creak as he cracked open the clamshell of his cell phone, its digital beep as he accepted the call. Her mirror self gazed at her sadly, pulling her lips into a flat smile.
"It's you," he called, sounding disappointed.
It's me, she thought.