Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Ah! God, Mulder.”

He laughs and leans on the doorframe, enclosing her in the bathroom. “Sorry to give you a fright,” he says, shrugging an eyebrow. He gestures to the blow dryer with his chin. “You didn’t hear me knock.” 

She turns around, breaking eye contact with his reflection to make eye contact with him for real. He smiles at her funny—tenderly, like she has food on her face. Her hair is half-done, she realizes; it’s puffy like she got caught in the rain.  

“Sorry,” she says. And tucks it behind her ears. And immediately flushes from chest to cheeks because whyissheapologizingtoMulder about her HAIR. 

“I like it,” he says. He smiles so big his top lip gets thin. She can see all his teeth.

“So.” She changes the subject. “If you’ve come into my home”—she checks her watch for drama—“at six thirty AM, though I have already agreed to meet you at the airport at eight, I can only assume that you’ve brought me a  bagel.”

“Yes.”

“And a latte.” 

“Yes.”

“Skim milk?” 

“One percent,” he says. And with affected pronunciation: “Live, dahling.” 

She crosses her arms. “Everything?” 

He grins. “With scallion cream cheese.” 

“Very good,” she appraises. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me,” he tells her. “I just wanna smell your onion breath.”

Ah—the proverbial other shoe; it drops. 

She had been so sure that it wouldn’t. So sure they would never so much as gesture to their kiss again.

Well, she had not been sure. But she had been defensively sure, committed to being sure, should she need, in the worst of cases, to steel herself for that truth. Should he have kissed her as a holiday pleasantry and nothing more, or lost his courage, or she did, or something. 

But here he was, joking about her onion breath. About getting close enough to smell it. Or alternatively, to kiss her. 

“You wish,” she says primly, and flicks the blow dryer back on.
-
Once dressed, she meets him in the living room. He’s kicked back on her sofa, feet up on the coffee table. Bagel in his mouth. “Uh-uh,” he says, flicking his hand vaguely at her suit. 

“What? Mulder, put your feet down. Why are you wearing jeans?” She checks the microwave clock as she grabs her own breakfast. “Mulder,” she chides, “let’s go, this is going to take forty-five minutes.” 

“Scully, Scully,” he chews. “Sit down.” 

“Mulder—” 

“Sit down, relax. Put on something comfortable.” 

“Excuse me? Our flight—” 

“Is not until ten. We have time.” 

“Mulder, it takes off for South Carolina at 9:15.” 

And here—the Great Mulder Reveal. “But we aren’t going to South Carolina, little girl.” 

His smile is a slow, mischievous peel. He stretches an arm along the back of the couch.

She should have known.
-
“Will you please tell me?” She has been whining since he revealed his trick.  

“Scully, no. Please. You’re gonna ruin the surprise.” 

“I don’t want a surprise,” she says, lolling her head against the back of his passenger seat. 

He shakes his head, smiling to himself. 

“I’m serious, Mulder.” She has been convinced to unpack her suitcase, re-pack a smaller suitcase with casual clothes, and leave the house with her hair damp. She would like to know where the fuck they are going for once, thank you. 

“Well, you’ll know more once we get to the airport, won’t you?” 

“Mulder, that is so—” 

“What, Scully? Backwards? Misogynistic? Disrespectful not to tell you?” 

She looks at him like he’s about to have two bullet scars. 

He pats her knee. “Just relax, Scully,” he tells her. “Try to enjoy your birthday present.”
-
“My birthday’s in February,” she grumbles as she slides her briefcase under the seat in front of her. She is notoriously grumpy prior to takeoff.

“As it happens,” he says, “I know. But this… embarkation, of sorts, occurs only once a year.” 

“Please tell me we are only traveling to Massachusetts,” she says, Mulder’s “embarkation” striking horror deep within her.  

“Would that I could, Scully.” She groans. “But I cannot.”
-
When they land at New Bedford Regional Airport in early afternoon, Scully is less suspicious. More excited. She does not know what brings them to New Bedford, but she’s so invested in its rich history that to be honest, she doesn’t really care. 

“Did you know that Melville set out on the Acushnet from here in 1841? Just after New Year’s?” she asks, watching the town through the passenger-side window of their rental car. 

“Nah,” he tells her, shaking his head as if he did not bring them to New Bedford the first weekend after New Year’s for this exact reason. He casts his eyes at her, watches her watching. (He hopes she is ignoring the signage that gives his present dead away.) “See any cannibals?”
-
Dana Scully, he thinks. Teacher of all that matters. Additionally, all that matters. My Yale College and my Harvard. 

She’s given him an education. 

And last Friday night, he’d kissed her. 

When she smiled at him, slow and sweet, a question in her eyes, after, he knew: he had to prove himself. He had to show her: I know you. The past year is over now. I’ve learned. How I’ve learned. 

He’d kissed her and she’d looked at him like she was the lucky one. Like she was surprised. He never wants her to be surprised at his tenderness—never, ever again. 

Thank God he listens to NPR some mornings, for it was there he’d heard of it. The 5th Annual Moby Dick Marathon. Saturday and all night through Sunday at the New Bedford Whaling Museum, featuring scholars and volunteer readers alike. Six “watches,” with breaks in between, and about thirty readers per watch. Yes, he will sit for a novel’s duration for Dana Scully. No, he will not heckle during the gay parts. He will be good. He will be quiet. He will let the symbolism sink in: this is the beginning of a journey. This is the beginning of a journey. This is the beginning of a journey. Call me Mulder. I am unreliable and strange, but you believe me anyway. 

Thank you for believing in me anyway.
-
He takes her to the Spouter Inn. “Mulder…” she breathes, eyes alight, as she walks through the door. She looks around, enchanted, then back at him. “I can’t believe I’ve never thought to come here.”

“Your present doesn’t start until tomorrow,” he tells her. 

“This is amazing,” she says, running her fingers along the dingy bar. 

“Wish Queequeg was here?” he asks her. There is a warmth in his chest that buzzes and buzzes to see her smile—a profound relief that he has made her happy, can make her happy. 

“Yes,” she says, grinning. “I need someone to share my bed.” The flirt. 

Over chowder, he brushes the back of his fingers along her sweater sleeve. “Never seen you so happy to be sitting in a dinky B&B, Scully.” 

“Mulder,” she admonishes, kidding. Mouth full. “It’s classic.”
-
They have too many beers. Scully’s breath is wheaty when she leans in to whisper to him at the door of his room, as they bid each other goodnight. She hovers close and he ducks to hear her better.

“Thank you for bringing me here,” she tells him, as if she must keep it secret that she ever enjoys things.

He smiles and bends his knee to bump her leg with his. Of course, he means.

“I don’t care what the surprise is,” she whispers quickly. She looks at him with wide, earnest eyes, like she hadn’t meant to admit this at all.

“You’re gonna like it,” he says. He swipes her hair away from her face. She follows his hand so her cheek lingers in his palm.

She’s grabbed on to his jacket, a flap in each of her hands, and she tilts to him as if on sea legs.

“You tired?” he asks her. She keeps taking these long, comfortable blinks.

She shakes her head and licks her bottom lip. “No,” she says. She slides her hands down his forearms and squeezes his. Her voice gets high. “It’s all weekend?”

“What’s all weekend?”

When he looks at her he can see she’s nervous—smaller inside of herself. Like she’s holding onto his hands so as not to bolt away.

“My surprise,” she clarifies, quiet.

“Yeah.” He chuckles. “Yeah, Scully, it’s all weekend.”

Her eyes go soft and melty. Really? they’re asking him, like it’s too good to be true that he wants to spend the weekend with her free of favors, and he aches at all the shit he’s pulled on her recently. Really? she wants to know, as if here they are, standing close like this, and she’s still unsure.

“Unless you want to go home,” he assures her.

“No,” she says, a little too fast to be cool. She keeps searching his eyes like she’s waiting for something. Looking for something. Trying to dissect something. “I don’t want to go home.”

He brushes her jaw. “Good.” They’re swaying together, breathing in sync.

“I know Starbuck wasn’t always loyal,” he tells her. “Only when Ahab deserved it.”

She swallows.

“Starbuck was a lot less selfish than his peg-legged captain, hm?”

She nods.

“I’ll never forget it,” he tells her. “Never again.”

I’m sorry, he means.

She nods.

When he leans to kiss her at the inner corner of her eyebrow, she puts her head down. He catches her on the hairline, and she scratches the fabric of his turtleneck once with her nails before turning away and walking to her room.
-
They sleep late. They order twin sets of eggs benedict at breakfast; Mulder eats one of Scully’s, but she takes all the arugula. She is perfect. She’s relaxed. She’s pulled some of her hair back into this flat tortoise clip, and the short pieces at the front curl above her head. He can see her freckles. 

They walk through the Whaling National Historical Park, and she swoons at Seamen’s Bethel. She wants to go inside, but he grabs her wrist, tugging her towards downtown. “Later,” he promises her. “No spoilers.” 

At Purchase Street, he makes her close her eyes. “Mulder,” she protests. “This is ridiculous.”

“No it’s not,” he tells her. He watches her cheat. 

“Don’t cheat. I’m pulling you.” Indeed he is guiding her, with hands on her shoulders. “I’ll tell you when you can open.”

“Actually, you’re pushing me—don’t let me—” 

He stops them on the sidewalk. She can feel a crowd.  

“Open,” he says. His breath tickles her ear. 

They are standing in front of the New Bedford Whaling Museum, under the banner. Welcome to the 5th Annual Moby Dick Marathon. She gasps. He’s dead still behind her, watching as she turns around. 

“Mulder…” 

Scholarly folk swarm around them and into the large brick building. Scully searches for words. He shrugs, shy. Here I am, he thinks. This is it. Ta da. She gives up searching and launches toward him, knocking him off his balance in a fierce hug. He wraps his arms around her, hesitant. Incredulous at his good luck. 

He remembers her in low candlelight, in a dark red robe. His first mate. 

“You like it?” he asks, peeking down at her.  

She nods furiously. “I love it,” she whispers. Her breath is warm. She digs her fingers into his leather jacket. 

When she pulls away, she wipes her eyes. “I’m so excited,” she sniffles, and they both laugh.
-
When they go inside, when they find their seats, when the first watch starts, when the reading moves to the bethel, to the Harbor View Gallery—the whole time, his arm is around her. 

When he falls asleep around midnight, sleepy in the too-warm heat of the crowded auditorium, she wakes him up with a soft elbow to his side. “Mulder,” she whispers, “hey, Mulder.” 

He blinks awake. “Mm?”

“This is the dick chapter,” she says. Then he really blinks awake. “Don’t want you to miss it.”
-
He is still awake ten chapters later for “Ahab’s Leg.”

“Castrated by his own peg leg?” he whispers, horrified. 

She nods. 

“Yeesh.”

“There goes that fantasy?” 

He cringes. “Good riddance.”
-
During the morning watch, she starts to doze. By six, she’s snoozing hard against his shoulder. He touches her cheek and rubs her biceps to wake her. “You wanna go get some sleep?” he asks her.  

She shakes her head, not bothering to open her eyes. “Wanna hear the rest.” 

“Come on,” he says. “We can be back for the forenoon watch.”

She yawns and contemplates.

“I’ll read you this part,” he promises. 

She blinks. 

“Come on,” he chides. “You’ve been asleep for an hour and a half. Let’s lie down where it won’t kill your shoulders.”

“I’m comfy,” she protests. 

“Come on.” He tugs her up by the hand, and she follows. “I’ll do all the voices.”
-
On the street it is cold and dark. 

She shivers and sidles up to him. Lifts his arm up, up, and over her shoulder.  “I am sleepy,” she tells him, and kisses his neck, open-mouthed and deliberate, once. She lulls in his arms, at peace. “Guide me.”