#those who buy a car and keep it spotless like they wont even eat in there

[hipsbef0rehands]

Cresco Amor

So I have been trying to start writing little things here and there and decided to give this a shot. I wanted to explore slow, burn, pre-official MSR with my own personal ideas of the season 6-7 timeline and what I think may have been happening behind the scenes leading to ... well, everything. Totally innocent (at this point), nothing explicit here. This is (hopefully) going to be the first of many stories. But that all depends on my motivation and bursts of quasi-creativity.

  Somewhere in Nevada, heading east

October 30, 1998

  “I do want to stop.”

  “Mmk” she responded groggily rubbing her eyes and reaching for the folded map in the glove box. “I think there’s a motel about 20 miles or so ahead, small town called Littlefield.”

  “No. I mean stop. Get out of the car… eventually”

  “Oh.” She said simply, realizing his meaning. “That’s… good, Mulder.” She looked out of the window into the darkness wondering what she would be seeing if it were daylight. It was a barren desert which they had been driving through for two hours now, since they were turned away from Area 51.

  “I just cant stop now, Scully. Not with everything that’s been taken from us.”

  She turned to face him. His use of ‘us’ was both surprising, and not, at the same time.

  “I can’t give up now. But eventually, I will stop.  You don’t think I’m going to call it quits while Agent Spender has my job now do you?” he said, throwing her a smile and trying to lighten the mood surrounding what could be a very morose conversation.

   “No, I guess not” she answered, pressing her lips tightly at the mention of Agent Spender’s name.

  “We are going to get the X-files back, Scully. We are going to get them back and prove what we’ve been working so hard to prove for all these years. Once we have answers, answers of what happened to Samantha, answers to what happened to you… Then I can stop, get out of the car.”

  “Mulder, you wouldn’t know what to do with yourself if you had all the answers.” It was true. She knew that if he had an answer, he’d only go looking for more questions. She couldn’t imagine a content Agent Fox Mulder. It saddened her slightly.

  “Sure I do, I’d write. I’d tell the world what we discovered.”

  “Mmm.” She acknowledged his response. “Well, I don’t know what I’d do.” She turned again, looking out the window.

  “You wouldn’t go back into medicine?” He questioned.

  “Maybe.” she shrugged. “I guess I’d like to go back into teaching.”

  “Ahh, maybe we could open our own school for the paranormal.” He quipped.

  “She rolled her head around to rest on her left shoulder, “Mulder, that doesn’t sound like getting out of the car to me.”

  “I always thought that I would move on eventually. Maybe move out of the city, buy a house, settle down... but over the years, those kind of dreams started to feel like a luxury… like something I’d never have, not as long as long as…” he started to trail off.

  She reached for his hand, which was resting on the center console, wrapping her small hand around his fingers.

“You don’t need to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders, Mulder.” She gave his hand a small squeeze and let go.

  He was quiet.

  “Have you ever… do you ever think… do you want a family?” She braced herself for his response. The idea of him making his way through life, standing strong with someone, anyone that wasn’t her gave her an uneasy feeling, one which she was not expecting, and one that she would not admit.

  “I never thought that I did. I certainly didn’t have the model family growing up.” He snorted out a nervous laugh and bit his lower lip. “But lately, I think that maybe a family would be nice, someday.”

  “Yeah.” Scully agreed, looking back out the window at the night sky over the lonely open desert.

  “Who knows, I may have to settle for a dog at this point.”

  She laughed. “You’d be a good dad.”

  He glanced at her, raising his eyebrows. “What about you, Scully?” He asked. Immediately regretting his words, he turned back to the road. “I mean… not that… God, I’m sorry. I just mean that you come from a big family, lots of good memories… Do you ever think you’ll want that some day?”

  “I always thought that I did, but now, now I’m not so sure. Finding out…” she paused, “…That I can’t have children it was upsetting, and then… Emily.” She paused. “Now I just don’t know. Maybe it was meant to be this way.”

  “Nah.” He shook his head “you’d be a great mom, Scully… to any child.”

  xxx

October 31st, 1998 7:06am

  “Hey Scully, I know its not your normal life, but thanks for coming out there with me.”

  “You’re welcome”

  As he hung up the phone and walked into his apartment he was immediately taken by the smell. Instead of the stale scent of days old garbage, which he was expecting after dropping everything Wednesday and heading out West straight from work, he was greeted with the smell of something citrus.

  Candles, there were candles on his dining room table, his kitchen was spotless and there were wine glasses on the counter.

  As he made his way into the living room he noticed a spotless coffee table. Glancing into his bedroom he began to laugh. Putting his hands on his knees, he bent down continuing to chuckle as he put his phone to his ear and hit speed dial #3.

  “This better be good.” The voice on the other end muttered sleepily. “Its 7 in the morning.”

  “Sorry, I forgot that the three bears don’t come out of hibernation until at least 10”

  “Mulder!” Langley shouted, loud enough for the other guys to hear “hang on, let me secure the line.”

There was a long pause on the other end of the phone and Mulder could hear some clicking and whispering among the men.

  “Ok, we’re all good, Man. What did you find out in Dreamland?”

  “Uh… nothing, actually. What I found when I came home was actually a lot more interesting. Thanks guys, I get the picture here, but I don’t need your help setting up any hot dates.”

  “What are you talking about?” Frohike asked. “What’s he talking about” he whispered to the other two. 

  “Guys, the leopard sheets, the trippy scented candles, the WATER bed? Not my scene, and not any woman’s scene since 1975.”

  “Huh? Mulder, you didn’t find anything in Nevada?” Byers chimed in.

  “Sorry to disappoint boys, but no.”

  “Damn! We were sure you had this one in the bag.” Frohike hissed.  “Now, what’s all this about a water bed?” He asked suggestively.

  “I came home to a spotless apartment and a bedroom that looks like Hugh Heffner decorated it.”

  “Nice” the three of them said in tandem. “But Mulder, we don’t know anything about that” Byers stated.

  Mulder could hear the three men whispering on the other end of the line “Did you?” “No, you?” “Of course not man, that’s not Byers’ style.” “You can’t even keep your own place clean” “Dude!”

  “Ok, ok.” Mulder pleaded incredulously. “It ‘wasn’t any of you’. I get it. Anyway I’m gonna get going, I just got home.”

  “Alright Mulder, talk to you later man, and I really don’t think Scully would go for leopard sheets…may want to try something in a soft beige or peach….”

  Rolling his eyes, Mulder hung up the phone before Frohike could finish and walked to the kitchen to grab a drink. On the counter was a half empty bottle of champagne and two used glasses. He had a sudden epiphany that maybe one of the gunmen used his place while he was gone to entertain company.

  ‘No, that couldn’t be’ he thought.

  Opening the fridge, he found it stocked. Shutting the door and shaking his head he grabbed a glass of water and headed to his couch.

  He sat down, rubbing his eyes and laying his head back when he realized that there was a brand new bed in the next room. He got up deciding to sleep in his own bed, for the first time in years.

  xxx October 31st 1998 5:35pm

  -ring-  -ring-  -ring- “Scully” she exhaled into the phone setting the grocery bag down on her desk.

  “It’s me, sorry, did I catch you at a bad time?”

  She glanced at her watch. “No, I just got in from the store. What’s up?”

  “Oh not much I was just wondering if you wanted to come over to my place tonight.”

  “Uh, sure.” She answered in the form of a question “Do you want to review last Monday’s case? Kersh is going to want the formal report on his desk by 9am day after tomorrow. I’m hoping he doesn’t start asking questions as to why we didn’t have it to him by the end of the week.”

  “Well, we could go over the case, if you wanted to. I was thinking we could eat dinner and maybe pass out candy.”

  “Huh”

  “Halloween, Scully. All Hallows Eve. October 31st….”

  “Oh shoot. I completely forgot. I don’t have anything to pass out.”

“Perfect, come over here, pretend you aren’t home.”

  “I wont be home.”

  “So that’s a yes?”

  “Yeah, Mulder that would be nice. See you around 7?”

  “Great. I’m making spaghetti.”

  xxx

October 31st 1998

7:10pm

  Scully walked from her car down the block towards Mulder’s apartment dodging a group of pre-teen girls dressed up like the spice girls.

  “Scuse me, miss” Scary Spice said as she slid past Scully rushing into Hegal Place.

  There were no trick-or-treaters in the 4th floor hallway as Scully approached #42. She knocked softly and was surprised when Mulder opened the door holding a huge bowl of candy.

  “Snickers, Madam?” he said with a smile.

  She gave him a challenging look and snagged a bite sized snickers bar. She figured he would assume she didn’t eat candy like this when they weren’t on a case, living off vending room snacks.

  “Yeah, actually… I’m starving.”

  “Good, come on in.”

  Scully was greeted with the smell of garlic and the sight of a spotless apartment.

  “Mulder, wow! Did you hire a decorator?”

  “I think it was the Gunmen, actually.”

  Scully raised her eyebrows and shot him an inquisitive look.  

  “Although they won’t fess up to it. Here come in, have a seat.”

  She walked in to his living room and sat on the couch. He followed behind her with a bottle of red wine and two glasses which he set on the table. She raised her brows and smiled at him.

  “Fancy.” She said, remembering the last time she had shared a bottle of wine with ‘Mulder’ and quickly attempted to shake the memory from her consciousness.

  “Well, I tried.” Mulder said pouring her a glass of wine. “I figured it was time to take an evening off work and just kick back.” He handed her the glass. “You know, normal people stuff.”

  She took a sip glancing at the TV.

  “Dracula?”

  “Yeah, a marathon with all the classics. Dracula, Frankenstein, Wolf Man…”

  “Sounds like work to me” she smiled.

  “Touché’” he said. “Cheers.”

  They clinked wine glasses and each took a generous sip. There was a knock at the door

  “Trick or treat!”

  “You grab that, Scully. I’m going to stir the pasta.”

  Scully picked up the bowl of candy and headed to the door. Opening up she found a young mother holding the hand of her son. Scully smiled placing a snickers bar into the small child’s pumpkin shaped bucket.

  “What do you say, Dylan?”

  “Thank you. Twick or tweet”

  “The other way around buddy.” She said shaking the boy’s hand. “We’re working on that one.” She said to Scully.

  “That’s ok.” she smiled at the women and then turned back to the young child. “I love your costume… are you Buzz Lightyear?”

  “YES!” the boy shouted, throwing his right arm up in the air.

  “Dylan! My man!” she heard Mulder exclaim as he came up behind her putting his arm on Scully’s shoulder. With his other hand, he reached out giving the five year old a high five.

  “Fox!” the boy squealed.

  “Great costume…here, take another candy bar.” Mulder said tossing another treat into the pumpkin. “Not before dinner, of course” He said, winking at the boy’s mother.

  “Thanks, Fox.” The woman said

  “This is my partner, Dana Scully.” He said while the two women exchanged polite smiles.  “Scully, this is Julie, she lives down on the second floor.”

  “Hello.” Scully said noticing how the slender brunet woman was eyeing Mulder, blushing.

  “Well Dylan, you behave yourself tonight. Don’t give your mom too much trouble” he said using a light hearted but stern voice.

  “Ok” Dylan said. “Pwomis.”

  “Goodnight.” Mulder said to the boy and his mother as he shut the door and turned to Scully. “Neighbors.” He said shaking his head and pointing at the door. “Cute kid though. I watched him once while his mother took her aunt to the hospital. Must have made an impression.”

  Scully had a disbelieving look on her face and Mulder faked offense.

  “What? Can’t believe I can play Mr. Mom for an evening?”

  “No, not at all” she said shaking her head slowly and then craning her neck to see what was producing such an appetizing aroma in the kitchen.

  “Ready for some pasta?” he asked, changing the subject.

  “Mulder, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen you cook” she admitted, thinking back to all the times she shared a meal with her partner. There were a lot of old diners that looked like they had been spit right out of the 70s. There had been lots of grease stained boxes of pizza. There had even been the one pot roast that she prepared for him on his 36th birthday after finding out that he hadn’t celebrated in ‘at least the past 5 years’, but she was sure that he never cooked for her.

  “If you call boiling noodles and choosing the best selling vodka sauce from Luciano’s ‘cooking’, then you might actually be more amazing than originally thought, Scully.”

  She blushed involuntarily at his comment.

  “Well it’s nice, Mulder. I haven’t had a home cooked meal in… wow…. a long time.”

  “Well then we will have to start a new tradition, ‘home cooked Mulder noodles’ every few weeks.”

  She smiled taking another sip of the wine as he carried the large bowl of pasta from the kitchen.

  “Dining room or living room?”

  “Living room” she answered with conviction. “Wouldn’t want to miss this movie marathon.”

  “Ahhh, a lady after my own heart.” He said as he went back to the kitchen to grab some plates. “But Scully, if I catch you twirling this spaghetti against your plate instead of a spoon, I just might change my mind.”

  “Bring two spoons.” She shouted, impressed with her own comeback.

  xxx

  She was laughing, and she was laughing hard. It was music to his ears.  Her head was cast downward and all of her hair was hanging over the crown of her head like a copper waterfall.

  “Mulder, stop. That isn’t true.” She said between laughter and a deep inhale. She swung her head up wiping the tears from her eyes. “There is no way you got off that easy.”

  “The Mulder family didn’t excel in discipline.” He confessed raising his beer bottle to his mouth. “And believe me, a drunk Captain Spock peeing on the front bushes of the high school lawn was the least of my parent’s worries.”

  “I never pegged you as a trecky, Mulder.”

  “Hey, I wouldn’t go that far. But it was a childhood guilty pleasure.”

  The room became quiet

  “Trecky.” She chided as they both began laughing.

  The pleasant sound of laughter settled into a comfortable silence

  “What about you, Scully? Any wild Halloween stories?”

  “No.” she answered quickly “At least nothing that could live up to that.” She raised the bottle, feeling the cool rim against her lower lip. Dropping her voice, she said into the bottle “Melissa on the other hand… she would have some tales to tell”.

   Mulder looked towards her, unsure of what to say next. He wasn’t used to her bringing up her sister in conversation. He wanted to hear the stories, but he didn’t want to push her. She surprised him by continuing.

  “Melissa was some what of a wild child. One year, she drug me along to go trick or treating because a boy she was dating had a younger brother who I was supposed to entertain while Missy had alone time with Jonathan Brock. Little did I know, Missy had no intention of trick or treating and instead we ended up, much to my dismay, at a party… you know, spin the bottle, seven minutes in heaven… that sort of thing.”

  “Sounds like a normal Saturday night” Mulder nodded with a small smile.

  With one short burst of laughter she continued, “Well, I was 13 at the time and Missy was 15. I didn’t realize that 15 was the age where dressing up was considered ‘too cool’. Nobody at this party was in character except the little brother and me. Gosh, I think his name was James, Jimmy or something. Anyway, there we sat, Luke Skywalker and Raggedy Anne the whole night. Well, until somebody called the cops and I ended up dragging Missy home crying and vomiting the entire way. Missy had been drowning her sorrows in about 4 beers and a shot of non-descript brown alcohol. Turns out Jonathan was actually playing Romeo for more girls than one that night.”

  “But I bet there was only one Jimmy What’s-his-face” Mulder said dreamily.

  “That there was. We kept in touch through middle school and into high school. The Brock’s moved, not sure what ever happened to him.”

  “Ahhh…” Mulder smiled with a smug grin “Raggedy Ann was definitely little what’s-his-face’s dream girl.”

  “Well, he was no Spock” she smiled back.

  “You didn’t have many boyfriend’s growing up, did you Scully?”

  ‘Where the hell did that come from’ he thought, shaking his head at his own comment, and nervously looking at her. He mentally began tallying up the alcohol he had consumed over the past few hours.

  She wasn’t expecting his comment, but it didn’t surprise her either. She never was the relationship type. She’d only had 4, maybe 5, boyfriends in her life one serious and one affair with a married man. She didn’t pride herself in her romantic choices, and her default single nature was no secret from those close to her. She began to have thoughts of her brothers, their weddings, her mother, who had not tried to set her up on any dates for almost 10 years now, old friends from medical school who tried to fix her up with friends of their husbands. She shook her head.

  “No, I didn’t” she said simply.

  She knew that having a large number of relationships did not define a woman, or her level of desirability. Scully always thought of herself as a sensual woman. Her profession, a traditional boys club, required somewhat of a wall to be erected around the more feminine aspects of her persona. She knew that many people assumed her to be icy or standoffish but she knew Mulder did not feel this way. Although it rare, Mulder had seen Scully at her most vulnerable, he knew her for her tender compassion, for her hostility, for her passion, anger, sadness, and for her joy.  Nobody had seen her entire emotional range the way that he had over the past six years. But for some reason, his acknowledgement of her chronic singleness, although correct, gave her an unsettled feeling.

  “You on the other hand, seem to attract women like moths to a flame.”

  “Hardly” he snorted.

  She looked at him with a non-believing expression and turned back to the TV.

  “I dated a lot in college, there was Phoebe at Oxford, some more casual relationships during my time at the academy, then Diana…” he paused nervously. “…Well you know about that.”

  “Mmm no, actually, I don’t” she admitted.

  “Well, a different story of a different life for a different time.”

  She accepted his dismissal of the topic. It was personal. It was private.

  “Your neighbor sure seems to have eyes for you.”

  Shocked at her own boldness, she made a mental note to change the subject soon. The bottle of wine, which was shared, and the beer she had been casually sipping on were obviously affecting her words. She never really drank anymore and obviously had been turning into a lightweight.

  “Julie?” He shook his head. “I don’t know, maybe, she’s got the kid. She’s probably not even thinking about that.”

  “It’s probably all she can think about.”

  “Nah” he dismissed. He turned to Scully with his head lolling to the back of the couch. “Plus, she’s not really my type.”

  That surprised Scully. The slender brunette seemed to be exactly his type. At least based on the history she was aware of. She decided not to analyze the situation further.

  ‘Does she really not know that’ Mulder wondered. There was a longing that he had felt for a long time towards his partner. He never let himself explore the depth of those feelings for fear of where it would lead. But there had been moments. Most notable this past spring, after they had lost the X-files and just before she had been taken from him, for the second time. The moment in his hall had happen, it existed, lingering in the back of his mind since their return from Antarctica.

  Then, earlier this month after his return from Bermuda, he had told her he loved her. There was definitely an aspect of narcotic courage that lead to the confession. ‘What was that saying?’ he wondered. ‘Drunken words are sober thoughts.’ She had dismissed the comment and he had been struck with both a feeling of relief, but also disappointment. Lying in a hospital gown that doesn’t even cover your own ass and confessing morphine-laced love didn’t exactly make him the suave Romeo Scully insinuated him to be.

  He was taken out of his own head by the sound of a yawn.

  “It’s getting late, Mulder. I should really go,” she said, standing up. Realizing how the alcohol was affecting her. “It may be best to call a cab,” she confessed.

  Standing up beside her, slightly less affected by the alcohol, Mulder placed his hand on her shoulder. “Nonsense, Scully. Just stay here, you can head home in a couple of hours or stay until morning. My pasta-making skills are nothing compared to toast.”

  She smiled and shook her head in dismissal of his offer. “Mulder, no it really is no trouble, I can come for my car tomorrow. I don’t have clothes, a toothbrush…”

  He made a mental note to pick up a toothbrush and some other comfort items to stock in the closet.

  “Ok…” he didn’t argue. “…If that’s what you’d like. I’ll call you a cab.”

  Twenty minutes and a cup of tea later, the cab had arrived. Mulder walked her to the door and opened it as she turned to him.

  “Thank you, Mulder. This was really nice. We don’t do this kind of thing nearly enough.”

  “No we don’t,” he agreed. With the knuckles of his index finger, he gently ran the back of his hand from her left shoulder to her elbow. “Thanks for keeping me company, Scully.”

  “Anytime, Mulder” she smiled. “Goodnight.”

  He watched her the entire way down the hall and as she stepped into the elevator. Once she was out of sight he turned to close the door. Making his way into the bedroom, he threw himself on the undulating bed where he would sleep for the second time in many years.

#cresco amor #part one #xf fanfic #my fics #x files #msr