Archive of Our Own (BETA rev. 2101)

Scully looked at the room, saw her bills in a neat stack and the case file laying open on the coffee table and it all looked like a picture in "FBI House and Garden." She squinted at the carpet.

The problem arose when she realized she'd never cleaned up for Mulder before, and there was no reason to do so now. But she'd already started cleaning up, so the process of re-messing only served to create a kind of stage-set disarray: a pair of shoes lying carelessly by the door where she'd put them, a cabinet door open for no good reason, the damned case file strewn out across the coffee table like she just couldn't be bothered. She put her shoes back on, walked them into the bedroom, and kicked them off again in front of the full-length mirror.

She was wearing a sweater in some noncommittal Banana Republic steel blue, with absurd buttons, four, going up the side of her neck. Black slacks. The slacks were too long and trailed on the ground behind her heels and she thought a moment about changing but that made her embarrassed and she played with the absurd buttons and tried to scrutinize her reflection without looking herself in the eye.

When he knocked, she was still looking in the mirror, and the first thing she did was look for an excuse to send him home. It wasn't fair, she knew, not after the way she'd been treating him, pursuing him, letting out the reins on all her pent-up desire, but as she went to open the door she caught herself wondering if this was really what she wanted, really what she'd bargained for.

She opened the door, trying to fix the ridiculously broad, fake smile she knew was plastered across her face. She wasn't sure what was the appropriate expression for a time like this, but she looked for compassion, sympathy, something close to friendly pity over his loss. He squinted at her and she figured she hadn't succeeded, quite, but then he was pushing past her and setting down something pink and clunky on the speaker of her stereo.

"How are you, Mulder?" she asked. She sounded like a schoolteacher.

"Eh," he said.

"You want anything?" she asked, following him to the couch where he sat down and put his head in his hands. "Tea, or something?"

"No, thanks," Mulder said, laughing weakly. "I don't know why people think tea is such a cure-all."

"Don't knock it till you've tried it," Scully said, and, eager to not have to look at him anymore, crossed to the kitchen and put the kettle on. "Do you want to talk about it?" she called.

"Eh," Mulder said.

She came back, but stood near the doorway, waiting for the teapot to whistle. "What happened?" she asked.

"You know I'm a total fuckup, right?" he asked, looking up at her. "I mean, that's not news to anyone, right?"

She grinned. "It's not news to me."

Mulder found a weak smile. "Well, you know what they say," he said. "You wanna make an eggroll, you gotta break a few eggs."

Scully snickered. "Who says that? They don't say that."

"Well, it's true, isn't it?"

Scully thought a little about how eggrolls worked, and then the teakettle whistled. "I'm getting you tea," she said.

The good mug, the one with the geese in flight, was in the sink, and Scully decided to give it a thorough washing rather than serving Mulder in one of her mother's old teacups. She turned on the sink and waited for it to run warm.

"I didn't love her," Mulder said from the other room, and then coughed.

Scully put soap on a sponge.

"I just, I don't know what I did. She has a great smile."

"Yeah, she had a nice smile," Scully said, remembering. She plunged her fist into a mug full of lather and scrubbed. Outside the window, a streetlight cut the night to illuminate a stripe of snowfall.

Mulder was still talking. "She was very easy, which was probably bad for me. She gave me so much, and she didn't ask for anything. Except to ask how she could give me more." Scully could hear him cough again. "It got really tiresome."

She looked out at the snow and couldn't think of a thing to say. This was a very new and peculiar Mulder, sitting there, spilling his guts all over her carefully arranged coffee table. "Okay," she called back, rinsing the suds away and letting the warm water roll down her wrists and forearms.

"I'm not cut out for a sustained relationship," Mulder said, sounding very close. Scully looked up to see him standing in the doorway. She wiped a soapy hand across her chin and reached for the dishtowel, turning her back on him again. "I'm a fuckup."

"I thought you were an eggroll," Scully said, crossing to the cabinet and pulling down four rectangular cardboard boxes of tea. "Earl Grey, Darjeeling, English Breakfast or Red Zinger?"

"I don't want tea," Mulder said. Scully didn't answer. "English Breakfast," Mulder said.

Scully dug out a little blue bag and tore the paper wrapping off. She found a spoon in the drainer.

"You think I'm awful?" Mulder was asking, as she poured hot water into the mug and pressed against the teabag with the back of her spoon. She shook her head.

"I think you decided this wasn't right for you," she said. "There's nothing wrong with that."

Mulder sighed. "I'm a fuckup," he said again. "An emotional fuckup. You're the only person I've never gotten tired of. That's pathetic."

Scully didn't know what to make of that, and she figured it was a good thing even though he phrased it like an insult and either way it made her a little nervous and queasy for the responsibility. "Sugar?" she asked. "Or milk, like the Brits?"

"I didn't like tea when I lived in England either," Mulder said, and then, "sure, both."

Scully opened the cabinet again and found a pink box of Domino sugar. She dug some out with the wet spoon, watching it crystallize over the metal like barnacles clinging to a derelict ship. Something warm was happening near her ear, and she realized with a catch in her stomach that it was Mulder's breath. He rested his chin on her shoulder and wrapped an arm around her waist, his nose in her hair. She shuddered.

"I feel like shit," he said.

"I'm making you tea," she said, because it was the only thing she could think of.

He was pressing against her ribs, pulling her toward him, pulling her around. She dropped the spoon on the counter and turned to face him.

He was trying to kiss her.

She swallowed hard and closed her eyes, concentrating on the sharp formica counter edge digging into her spine. He kissed her. Her thoughts raced. She remembered phone calls she had to make; she remembered there was dirty laundry waiting on her bed. She wanted him to leave. But instead, she kissed him back.

He made a soft squeaking sound when he pulled away, and he looked down at her with heavy, sad eyes.

"You look tired," she said, though that wasn't exactly accurate.

"Yeah," he said.

"You should go home and get some sleep."

Mulder gestured at the counter with his chin. "What about the tea?" he asked.

"Caffeine will just keep you up," Scully said, turning away from him to pick up the mug and spill it out in the sink. "You should probably get a good night's sleep."

Mulder gave her a weird look, but nodded. "I'm beat," he said.

"I am too," she said, more boldly. "We'll talk tomorrow."

"Call me," Mulder said. "I've got some things to do in the morning, but I'll have my cell and you have the number..." he trailed off, because it was a ridiculous thing to say. Scully smiled.

"I think I have the number somewhere," she said, trying to make light of it, but Mulder looked strange and sick. "Go home," she said, gently.

"Yeah," he said.

She walked him to the door, and locked it behind him when he left.

Then, in a kind of a daze, she turned around to inspect the glass thing he'd deposited on her speaker, which turned out to be an ashtray. She scowled at it, picked it up and flipped it over, looking for a tag or a signature or a note or something. There was nothing there to find.

Scully carried it into the kitchen, turned on the sink, and scrubbed at the ashtray with her soapy sponge, tired and uncomfortable and trying not to think about the fact that Mulder had come over here and kissed her.

She hadn't asked him where he'd gotten the ashtray, but it was a hulking, ugly, pink thing, and Scully had to assume he wouldn't be wanting it back. At least, she hoped he wouldn't, hoped he hadn't left it here as an excuse to come back over and kiss her again. She put it away, standing on tiptoe to slide it into the dusty depths of the top cabinet shelf she couldn't really reach.

If Mulder came back for it -- if Mulder came back -- she'd turn him away, this time, tell him she wasn't just sitting around waiting for him to break up with his girlfriend and come to her for a pity kiss.

She didn't let herself think it might mean something more.

*****

When she opened her door three hours later, Mulder was saying, "The thing is, I didn't want to go home. Which is why I came here in the first place and why I'm back now." He nodded. She wondered if he was drunk.

"We need to talk, I think. I think we need to talk. I've been driving," he explained, pushing his way inside.

"Mulder," she muttered, staring out at the worn carpet of the hallway. She could hear him pacing behind her. At some point he would expect her to say something.

She locked the door and turned to face him. He'd shrugged his jacket off and thrown it over a chair, and she wanted to pick it up and hand it back to him, unlock the door and force him into the hallway backwards.

Mulder scowled. "Stop looking at me like that, Scully. I'm not drunk."

Searching for something harmless to say, she almost offered him tea, but remembered that wasn't a good idea, that was what got her kissed in the first place, or what lead to the kissing, or at least that's what she had been doing when he kissed her, whatever it'd meant.

Mulder stopped pacing. "We need to talk," he announced.

Scully realized she was in the middle of a six-year relationship with this man and she was suddenly terrified she'd somehow ruined them in her kitchen over a kiss and a cup of tea no one ever got to drink.

"I'm sorry," she blurted, desperate for a fail-safe, a backup plan, a rope to tie around her waist in case it turned out she'd done something terrible by expecting the worst of him.

Mulder blinked at her, and a drop of water fell from the melting snow in his hair to crawl down his cheek. "Sorry? No, it's--" It wasn't a smile, but it was close. "I just needed to kiss you."

Suddenly shy, Scully stared at the floor. She'd been flirting with him in Jersey because she didn't think she had a chance. He'd been happy, and with Sue, happily with Sue, and Scully had been jealous. She'd been teasing him, and herself, but now he was here, saying he'd just needed to kiss her.

"I've missed you, Scully." He took a step closer, looking uncertain. "Sue wanted more of my time, but--"

"But what?" Scully insisted, feeling prickly at the sound of Sue's name.

The corner of Mulder's mouth curled up in a smirky little smile and he looked like the Grinch with a particularly evil plan. Easing forward a few smug steps, he smiled down at her.

"But I told her," he said, smiling his curly smile, "that I couldn't possibly spend any more time with her, that if I was going to be harassed, it would be by someone who understands me, someone who gives me space and only pushes me when I need to be pushed."

Somehow, he had backed her up against the counter, in roughly the same spot as the last time they were in the kitchen. Deja vu was starting to feel like claustrophobia, but in a good way, with tingling.

He was still smiling. "And I realized I already have a person like that, a wonderful, bossy, beautiful, opinionated, brilliant--"

Scully was starting to feel warm.

"Partner," Mulder finished, having cornered her next to the refrigerator. "So, I've got it all figured out now. I mean, it took a while, starting with the Jedi mind games Sue was playing, and then I came here, and you saw how that went, but then I was driving...but now, Scully," he said, looming, "now I have it all figured out, and you were jealous and flirty--"

"That was wrong of me," Scully muttered, trying to sneak in an apology because she felt guilty or at least understood she should feel that way.

"And flirty," Mulder repeated, tormenting her with his knowing grin. "And I figured there had to be something here. Something between us. So that's why I'm here now. That's why I was here before, except I didn't know it then. I just knew that I needed to kiss you."

"Okay," Scully said, attempting to sound rational but having trouble remembering where to start.

"And I'd like to do it again," he said in a low voice. "That is, if you would be agreeable to such a thing."

Scully wanted to do something with her head, like shake it or nod it or move it closer to Mulder and his sulky lips, Mulder with his scruffy hair and strong arms. She was getting Mulder, and that no longer scared her because now she knew what she wanted to do with him.

Except she was frowning, which meant she might cry, so she leaned into him, hiding her face in his sweater and sighing his name. "Okay," she said again, her heart pounding in what was either fear or greed.

Mulder chuckled and rubbed her back. "Okay," he said.

Scully didn't believe it could be that simple. "I probably need some time to think about this," she told Mulder's sweater.

He squeezed her. "Scully, you get all the time you need. Do you want me to go?"

She wasn't sure what she wanted, but she nodded anyway.

"Okay then, let's walk me out," he said, grabbing her hand and smiling down at her as they bumped through the doorway that was too narrow for both a Mulder and a Scully.

At the front door, Scully went to find Mulder's coat while Mulder lingered against the doorjamb. He'd worn his leather jacket, and picking it up from where it had fallen to the floor, she noticed its smell again, a brown scent that always reminded her of new shoes and Mulder.

Handing the jacket to him, she watched him put it on and then resume his lazy pose against the doorframe. He was stubbly and rumpled and supposed to be leaving, but leaning there in her doorway, he looked like a Calvin Klein ad for something expensive and fantastic and she wanted to try him on.

"Mulder," she said, reaching up to test his damp hair.

Grinning, he put his hands on her hips and pulled her closer. "Yes, Scully?"

It was something she couldn't put into words yet, how this felt endless and impossible. It must have been love.

Smiling, she kissed him, one hand in his hair, the other at his shoulder, her thumb brushing along his jaw and down his neck, careful of the barely healed wound there. Mulder sighed, and when his eyes opened, they didn't know what color they were.

"We can have breakfast tomorrow," Scully suggested, fascinated by how close they were standing, how easy and new it was.

Mulder nodded. "I'd like that."

"Okay," she said, almost overwhelmed by it all. She didn't have to share him anymore. He was hers.

"Night, Scully." Kissing her on the cheek, he gave her one last smile and then left.

Leaning against the doorjamb, she crossed her arms over her chest and watched him saunter down the hallway. He was hers.