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Chapter Text

1.

“You deserve a fucking medal,” Sergeant Duthie’s voice calls out from across the police car, startling Scully.

“I … what?” Scully, confused, looks up from where she is jotting down notes from the case, details she will need to remember to write this up.

“I couldn’t do what you do,” Duthie shakes her head. “You’re as cool as a cucumber. I would wring his fucking neck, to be honest.”

Duthie gestures vaguely across the street.

“Oh,” Scully says, understanding. Her eyes fall across the street on Mulder, who is still talking to the camera crew animatedly, recounting some high points of their past cases. “Well, Sergeant Duthie, Agent Mulder is not … I mean, I know he comes off a little strangely in situations like these, but he is actually a brilliant, very capable agent. And he has had a difficult time recently, in his personal life, so he was just especially … intense tonight.”

Duthie gives her a doubtful look and gestures to the pen in Scully’s hand. “Tell the truth. He’s the type that isn’t going to write one word of the paperwork either, isn’t he? Besides signing his name once you are done?”

Scully purses her lips and grips the pen. It’s not entirely true, but it’s close enough to the mark that she can’t quite deny it in good faith.

“Thought so,” nodded Duthie. “See? You deserve a fucking medal.”

“Thank you,” Scully says, a tight smile. “But honestly, I feel fortunate to have him for a partner. We’ve worked … very effectively together.”

Duthie tilts her head and peers at Scully like she is a rare insect. Mulder is still talking a mile a minute across the street. The words “quantifiable proof of the supernatural” are clearly audible.

“I suppose I might accept the medal though,” says Scully, watching him wearily, after a beat. “If someone were to give me one.”

Duthie sniffs, satisfied. “You should go get some sleep,” she says. “How long have you been out here tonight? You must be worn out.”

Scully nods slowly. She does long for food, a shower, a hotel bed. But first, she has to lure Mulder away from his new TV industry friends and back to their car.

“You’re just impressive to me, Agent Scully,” Duthie says with finality, walking back to her car. “I wish everybody could keep their personal feelings out of their work like that.”

Chapter Text

2.

Of course the car doesn’t start.

Mulder tries several times, listening to it sputter, and then places his finger on the fuel gauge.

“Uh,” he says. “Scully, it’s empty.”

Scully slowly crumples in the passenger seat, her head bowing in defeat. It is close to seven-thirty now— ten-thirty D.C. time.

“You know what I think? I think you didn’t fill up the tank,” Mulder says.

“I didn’t,” Scully says, running her hands slowly down the sides of her face.

“I did remind you,” Mulder says tactfully, giving her a cautious glance.

“True, you did,” Scully agrees, miserably. “What’s more, I think we will probably see that exact moment on TV. The glamorous FBI agent instructs his joyless partner to fill up the tank for him.”

Mulder examines himself critically in the rear view mirror. “You think I came off as glamorous, Scully? Was it the leather jacket? I was going more for straight-up genius.”

“Yeah, I’m sure that came across,” Scully says flatly, slumping further in her seat. “Cops is well-known for their nuanced attention to character.”

“So in your, uh, full commitment to portraying Dr. Joyless on camera tonight, you decided against getting gas?”

“I was planning to get gas after my 3 a.m. autopsy,” Scully says, raising her palms helplessly skyward, “but then there was this somewhat unnerving hantavirus incident, and the television crew in the car with me, and it must have slipped my mind.”

“Listen, you can’t blame yourself,” Mulder says solemnly.

“Against the odds, I don’t, somehow.”

“All right,” Mulder says. “So we regroup.”

He gives her a winning smile, and he places an encouraging hand on her shoulder.

Scully wishes she could be irritated by this sunny, indefatigable version of Mulder she has been partnered with lately.

It would be a relief just to want to punch him in the face. Clean and simple. With no intervening instincts to protect him, fortify him, heal him, tidy up his shirt, or wantonly start unbuttoning his pants.

“Unfortunately, it looks like everyone who might be helpful to us has cleared out,” Mulder says, craning his head to look around the car. The police cars or TV crew vans that had been parked around them minutes before were now all gone, headed for their showers and breakfasts and beds. “But we can probably call back Sergeant Duthie and see if she can have someone give us a ride to a gas station.”

“No,” Scully says quickly. She doesn’t want Duthie to come back — to give her more pitying looks, to give Mulder more disapproving scowls. “The gas station was a few blocks east. We can just walk, right?”

“Why Scully, of course,” Mulder says. “I love a morning stroll in beautiful Southern California with my joyless partner.”

Chapter Text

3.

In the forgiving early morning light, Willow Park is transformed. It looks now like a place people simply live; its most shadowy corners have morphed into the banal bric brac of modest residential neighborhoods. Children in backpacks walk in tight duos and trios down the sidewalk towards a crowded bus stop on a nearby corner. They stare at Scully and Mulder with undisguised curiosity. Somewhere, someone is cooking something that smells salty and smoky and fatty and delicious, probably bacon, and it makes Scully’s stomach growl so aggressively she wonders if Mulder can hear.

The southern California morning is still cool, still gray, but warm enough that both she and Mulder decided to abandon their coats in the car. As they walk, Scully is aware of how they must look to the neighbors: two white people, in their thirties, wearing fitted stark all-black clothing, an overdramatic look for the morning setting. An elderly woman in curlers and a robe, sweeping debris past flower pots on her front stoop, gives Scully a scowl more rooted in confusion than hostility. Scully gives her a tight smile as they pass, and the woman nods politely, if guardedly, in response.

“Have you ever actually watched the show Cops, Mulder?” Scully asks, squinting a little as they walk into the sun.

She has been curious about this question all night. Mulder seems to have adapted himself perfectly to the show’s conventions, yet she can’t imagine why he would think it was a good platform for talking to the world about his theories.

“Only with you, g-woman.”

“With me? Cops?” Scully’s eyes widen. “We have never.”

“We most certainly have,” Mulder says pleasantly. “You don’t remember?”

Scully considers for a moment. “No,” she says cautiously.

In fact, Scully has seen many episodes of Cops, a life achievement of which she is not particularly proud. Her brother Bill is the real connoisseur. He has been known to sing along with the theme song and howl in laughter when suspects scream at one another. Bill loves for his sister to watch with him, since he assumes she especially can appreciate law enforcement as entertainment, but Scully herself never really gets it. She questions the officers’ heavy-handed tactics. She is uneasy that the show has a mean sense of humor about the poor and addicted. She wonders why they never, ever show anyone doing any paperwork. But she hasn’t always found it easy to get along with her brother, and she does love his raucous laugh, so she tolerates this sibling bonding activity.

She can’t imagine how it ever would have involved Mulder, though.

“You and I watched it together in the hospital,” Mulder reminds her, shoving both hands in his pockets as they walk. He kicks at something on the ground. “When you were sick -- the chemo. It’s possible that you were a little out of it.”

“Ah,” Scully nods. Her time in the hospital is a blur of surreal, half-remembered daytime TV.

“I was extremely funny while we were watching, Scully,” Mulder adds. “You’ll have to take my word for it. I am a little disappointed it wasn’t more memorable.”

“I am sure that has nothing to do with your wit, Mulder,” Scully says.

“We watched an episode that took place in Florida,” Mulder continues. “This woman claimed she sleepwalked into a convenience store and shoplifted tampons and Cheetos, but the cops didn’t believe her. I wasn’t so sure. It’s not like extreme behavior while sleepwalking hasn’t been documented before.”

“If only you had been there to defend her,” Scully says. “You could have set them straight.”

“If only we had been there to defend her, Scully.”

“Right. Teamwork makes the dream work.” Her tone must have been a shade too sarcastic, because there is a pause, and she feels Mulder’s eyes pressing on her.

“Uh, Scully,” Mulder says, “I am starting to get the impression this wasn’t a great night for you.”

She shoots him a look. His black turtleneck is covered with something dusty, and his hair is as mussed as it ever seems to be, and his expression is honed and intent.

“No,” she says, softening her tone. “No, no, Mulder, I’m just tired and hungry.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m absolutely, entirely, one hundred percent sure that I’m tired and hungry.”

“But you’re sure that’s all it is?”

“Aren’t you tired and hungry, Mulder?”

“Yes, but …”

“You’re also a little wired, maybe?”

“Maybe a little.”

“The idea of a full moon monster must intrigue you,” she suggests, leaning in towards him a little.

“Well, yes,” he admits.

“What specifically do you find interesting?” she asks innocently.

“Fear itself, Scully.” His eyes lock on hers, and she knows he is successfully sidetracked. “You have to admit that’s pretty fascinating. I think we had some fairly compelling circumstantial evidence that this entity existed. And then … the chance to have the story broadcast on national television.”

Scully raises a single brow. She has questions about his interest in that, but she is still waiting for the best way to ask them.

“What kind of entity would feed on fear?” Mulder wonders. He is gazing off in the distance, gathering momentum. “What kind of monster would be able to take on the shape of what frightens us the most? In Greek myth, of course, Phobus is a personification of fear that could turn brave warriors into cowards on the battlefield. Folklore tells of malevolent entities like the boogeyman or El Coco, embodiments of terrors intended to keep the young from stepping out of line. And of course, some psychologists believe that’s what all tales of monsters and ghouls are -- mere projections of our most salient fears.”

“This was no projection, though,” Scully comments. “Something killed those people in physical reality.”

“Exactly.” Mulder points his finger at her. “So whatever theory we come up with has to account for a perp who can take the palpable form of Freddy Krueger or wasp or human or hantavirus. Our fears made manifest. You have to admit the sheer physicality of the creature is going to be the challenge for the skeptical position here, Scully.”

He doesn’t look at her, but he stops talking just a fraction of a second, and she instinctively knows what he wants — for her to enter into this dance with him. Yet his forward momentum and her fatigue: they do not sync. She cannot make an argument from nothing, nor is she even sure she wants to.

“Sure, it would be better to have seen some evidence on camera,” he continues, undaunted, as if she had spoken anyway. “Of course. But do we need to have seen the monster to understand its impact? Of course not. I think fear is something that human beings can understand innately, instinctively. It’s in our hard wiring. Fear is the flip side of love. Anyone who has loved understands that.”

His words are tumbling out quickly, even for him. Mulder has been like this — this heightened, hyper-focused version of Genius Mulder— since Sacramento, since the news about Samantha.

Scully can’t settle on how she feels about it. Surely it is better than when, after his mother’s death, he struggled against the pull of a powerful undertow of grief, a struggle that left him clinging to her for dear life. On the other hand, this … Hardy Boys energy of his is disconcerting, too, especially coming so soon after. Disconcerting -- and, well, frankly, exhausting.

She knows he is moving towards something new, something unknown. She knows that frightens her more than it really ought to.

After all, it’s not as though she hasn’t asked him to go to strange, unexpected places before. Just months ago, didn't she ask him to help her create a baby? (It is probably for the best that the Cops crew does not know that salacious detail.) That was a potentially disorienting turn for their partnership to take, and he did it with little hesitation. Unfortunately — she thinks with a cold, clinical detachment she does not really feel — that particular plot twist looks like an unlikely possibility now, with each failed IVF attempt. It is probably one strange place they will not go together.

She turns to look at him. Mulder has not stopped talking about the fear monster, although she has certainly stopped listening. Like she is the one watching him through a camera, she observes his expressions, his flashing eyes, his telling mouth, remembering how she once, early in their partnership, eagerly tracked every word of his arguments, hungry to respond. Ever ready to jump in at her turn.

She thinks too much about the small, unmarked ways she might be starting to fail him now.

She thinks too much about the verb form of “touchstone.”

Chapter Text

4.

“Scully,” Mulder interrupts himself suddenly. “Mangoes.”

She tracks the direction of his eyes, seeking the source of this nonsequitur. A half block ahead of where they are walking, a man and his teenage son work together to lift wooden flats of pale green mangoes from the back of a pick-up truck to a sales cart in their front yard.

Mulder turns to her, his eyes now taking on a manic, child-glimpses-ice-cream-truck gleam.

“You’re hungry, right?” he turns to Scully, all urgency. “I think that man’s getting ready to go out and sell those mangoes. Maybe I can convince him to do some advanced sales.”

Scully opens her mouth ineffectively, unable to respond fast enough, as Mulder sprints away from her down the sidewalk. She watches as, up ahead, he begins a confused and impassioned negotiation with the man and his son. Scully cannot hear what they say until she walks closer.

“Todavía no estoy listo.” The man is raising his hands, in frustration, looking to his son for help in communicating in English with Mulder.

“He’s not ready to sell them yet,” the teenager reports to Mulder in a bored monotone. “He’s busy getting ready to go out to the beach to sell them later this morning. Come find him then.”

“Just one or two,” Mulder pleads, holding out a bill. “The lady is starving. She gets cranky. I’ll pay whatever you want. Please.”

“It’s okay, Mulder,” Scully calls out behind him. “Come on, he’s not ready to sell. Let’s just go get the gas.”

The man angles his head and notices Scully, appraising her black clothes and her weary expression. His gaze returns to Mulder again, and, furrowing his brow, he seems to decide something about the situation that Scully isn’t sure she is comfortable with.

He nods, with a smirk, and says something in Spanish to his son, who shrugs and holds out his palm, taking Mulder’s money.

“Thank you so much,” Mulder says, grinning broadly. “Muchas gracias.” He turns back to beam at Scully. “You like mangoes, don’t you, Scully? Mangoes sound good?”

“Sure,” Scully replies, shrugging, giving him a hesitant smile. “Who doesn’t like mangoes?”

A rush of heady, uncontrolled affection for Mulder washes over her, making her feel almost unsteady, leaving her swaying there in the sun. She walks to stand next to him, giving herself permission to stand close enough that the sides of their bodies touch.

They watch, side by side, as the father grasps hold of two perfect mangos from the flat. Like a consummate performer, the man presents the mangoes to them, as though they were juggling balls he is about to toss up in the air. He spikes each mango artfully on a wooden stick, and then holds the two sticks together in one hand like a bouquet as he searches the shelf below in the cart for his knife.

Scully smiles warmly at the mango man, appreciative of the effort he is making for them. Producing a knife, which glints theatrically in the morning sun, he smiles back.

As Scully and Mulder watch, he uses the knife to expertly carve each mango, slice by slice, until their pale green peels are shed, and they are each transformed into bright, succulent, yellow-orange blossoms, growing from wooden stick stems. It’s a treat that Scully remembers seeing sold on the street in San Diego as a child, but not for years. She is charmed.

Scully turns to see Mulder’s reaction to the mangoes’ transformation. She is startled to see his eyes eagerly taking in her face instead, searching, like he is hoping to see something there. Caught looking at her, he smiles a little sheepishly, and his eyes quickly shift away from hers.

“¿Con limón y chile?” the man asks Scully.

“Sí,” Scully nods eagerly. “Yes.”

The man douses the mango blossoms in lime juice and dusts them with chile powder and salt, so that they are now orange blooms speckled vividly in red. He presents one to Scully -- “Señora,” and one to Mulder, “Señor.”

After they have thanked him, profusely, and walked away, Scully admires her mango flower sentimentally.

“It’s almost too pretty to eat,” Scully says, regretfully, rotating the stick in her fingers as they walk.

“But I want you to eat it,” Mulder insists. “You’re hungry.”

“I said almost, Mulder.” She angles the stick towards her mouth and takes a dainty bite: sweet and spicy. Dribbles of juice run down her chin.

“It’s delicious,” Mulder says appreciatively, chewing. “I was hungry, too.”

There is already mango juice and red dust coating Mulder’s bottom lip. A person could reach up and take his face in her hands, and gently, slowly brush off that plump lip with her thumbs. Or, even more tempting, with her tongue. He would stare at her in shock. It would be delicious in every respect.

But these are not the kind of thoughts she acts upon.

Their pace slows as they concentrate on taking careful bites of their blossoms in a companionable silence. The California sun, true to its reputation, is growing brighter. Some drops of juice have fallen on Scully’s black sweater, and they reflect sunlight like tiny scattered jewels. She wipes them away with the back of her hand.

“Better, Scully?”

“Better,” she agrees softly, letting her tongue run over the spice on her own lips. Slight heat. “Thank you, Mulder.”

“They should taste freaking amazing,” Mulder says in mock complaint. “I paid that guy twenty dollars for two.”

“Well, we owe him that easily,” Scully observes, taking another bite. “If only for being the type of people whose fears could have brought Donny Pfaster into his neighborhood.”

Mulder is silent for a moment, and then he licks off his fingertip. “I hadn’t thought of it quite like that, Scully.”

“If there is an entity that takes the form of people’s fears,” Scully says, “you hadn’t considered that you and I are possibly the most dangerous people in the metro area? That arguably we should have left immediately?”

“We weren’t in mortal fear last night,” Mulder says, chewing.

“Not this time. But mortal fear is not exactly a stranger to us. And if Mulder and Scully are that afraid … well, it probably wouldn’t have been as straightforward as movie villains or wasp monsters, would it?”

“No,” Mulder admits. He watches her nibble at her mango flower for a moment, and he produces, improbably, a brown folded paper napkin from his pocket, likely a leftover from the breakfast bar at the motel, which he wordlessly hands to her. “Do you think you would have seen Pfaster?”

“I don’t know,” Scully says truthfully, frowning and wiping the corners of her mouth. “Probably, because it was so recent. But there have been … well, you know. So many possible fear monsters.”

She holds the used napkin back out to him, and he accepts it, dabbing his mouth with an unused corner. His expression is more pensive now.

“I’m sorry,” Scully says, nudging him slightly. “I didn’t mean to bring you down from your monster high.”

“You shouldn’t apologize for challenging me,” he says, shaking his head. “That’s what you do.”

Scully frowns again, watching her feet as she walks, considering those words. Her precise value to him is always, to her, an open and active case, always under investigation.

“So … you accept my theory for last night, Scully?” Mulder says, eying her curiously. “A fear monster?”

“I didn’t say that,” Scully says. She doesn’t elaborate. The truth is that she has found herself entertaining his explanation almost exclusively, and she hasn’t been constructing much of a plausible counterargument. And she isn’t sure why.

A bouncing car drives by with quite a loud, thumping bass line for so early on a Monday morning, and both Scully and Mulder’s attention is drawn to it, their heads watching in tandem as the car passes by.

“Hey, come back,” calls Mulder to the car playfully. “Take us wherever you’re going. We know how to party.”

Scully rolls her eyes at him fondly. There is still red powder around Mulder’s mouth. Watching him start to gnaw again at the remains of his mango pit, she thinks, not for the first time, that he is remarkably goofy for such a good-looking man.

“Mulder,” she says, carefully. “What was all this about tonight with the Cops crew? Why were you so invested in speaking to them?”

He crumples the napkin in one hand methodically, seeming to think it over.

“Remember how you reacted when I did the interview for Jose Chung’s book?” Scully says. “You absolutely hated it, Mulder. You were so protective of our work then — so sensitive to the possibility of it being made to look foolish in the wrong hands.”

“It’s true,” Mulder says. “I was afraid of speaking to outsiders.”

“And now you’re not?”

“It comes down to this,” he said, looking at the ravaged heart of his mango, still impaled on the stick, “ I just want it to matter. All of it. I want it to have weight and meaning.”

Scully is puzzled. “What do you want to matter?”

“Our work,” he said. “Since I found out about Samantha, since I can now put that set of questions to rest … it makes me think, what is the next logical step?”

“And?” Her voice sounds louder than she expects, but he doesn’t seem to notice.

“A man who is about to turn forty, well, he should be ready to move on to the next stage of life, right? I have been held back by traumatic experiences and unanswered questions, but I should be ready to make progress. Real adulthood. It’s about time. Don’t you think, Scully?”

This should not make her feel nervous. There is no reason for this to make her feel nervous. She had guessed this was the reason for his new energy. She should be nothing but happy for him.

“Of course,” she says softly.

“A man my age should be starting to make decisions that last. He should be doing something that reaches others. Impacts the world.” Mulder shrugs. “Ergo, I am trying new things.”

“So impacting the world means … taking your theories on reality TV shows?” Scully can’t understand how Mulder could possibly be this naive.

“I’m not saying I should become a Cops regular. That’s obviously just the opportunity that happened to come up,” Mulder smiles crookedly. “But sure, it’s an opportunity to show a little of what we do to a broader audience. After all, most of our work winds up languishing in the basement files forever, unloved and unnoted. Why not try to make it count for something?”

“Mulder, I can understand that,” Scully says. “I think that’s a good idea, generally speaking. I just worry about putting your faith in a TV show with its own agenda. It is very possible they will make you look foolish for their own purposes.”

“But don’t you agree, Scully, to do things that matter, you have to be at peace with the risk of looking foolish? You have to be okay with the idea of looking ridiculous so that you can … be heard. Otherwise, you’re all alone with your dignity and your basement files.”

“Hmm,” Scully thinks about this. “I suppose.”

“Of course,” Mulder says, “I guess worst case scenario, you are left still looking foolish, without your dignity, all alone with your basement files. Which is arguably the Fox Mulder Story.”

“You’re never all alone with your basement files, Mulder. You have your joyless partner.”

“True,” Mulder says. “And you never look foolish, do you, Scully?”

Chapter Text

By the time they reach the gas station, they have both finished with their mangoes.

Mulder, who spots a trash receptacle and sees a basketball hoop, shoots first his mango pit, and then the crumpled napkin, from five feet away, using excellent form. He enacts a silent but triumphant cheer. Scully disposes of hers more traditionally into the trash can, and she feels a little sad to see it go, as though it were a real flower, now wilted.

Mulder purchases a gas can from the attendant, and as they work together to fill it -- Mulder holding and steadying the can, and Scully pumping the gas. She loves these kinds of concrete, everyday acts of partnership more than she would ever admit to him. After so many years, this unthinking teamwork is what comes easy to them. But this isn’t the kind of work that Mulder is talking about as mattering, as having impact.

“You know, Scully,” he says, as he screws back on the cap, “when we are back here again in a few months, it’s another chance for our work to reach the public. Maybe they will let us do some interviews, talk to the press.”

“What are you talking about?” she says hesitantly, replacing the gas pump with an ominous click.

“Skinner’s movie? The Lazarus Bowl? We’re definitely required to put in an appearance at the premiere.”

“Oh God,” Scully closes her eyes. “I forgot about that, Mulder. That’s going to be … excruciating. I would almost rather be on Cops. At least then we’re getting our work done at the same time.”

“Come on. It will be fun,” he says, brightly. He lifts the full gas can as they begin the walk back to their car. “We get to dress up! And it’s another way for us to leave our mark, assuming Federman got some of it right.”

“Not very likely,” Scully mutters.

“We can do press to set the story straight,” Mulder says, swinging the gas can jauntily. “You can sit with me in the interviews, make sure I don’t say anything too damaging.”

“I can sit with you in the interviews?”

“Right, like you did tonight,” Mulder says. “You’re smart about watching out for our image, g-woman.”

“Am I … am I your publicist now?” Scully can barely get these words out.

“You don’t sound very excited.”

“I’m your publicist and your pathologist? And pet skeptic? And armed back-up? And Friday night plans?”

“It does start to sound like a lot,” Mulder says, his eyes back on her again. “More than you want, maybe?”

“Mulder,” Scully says, and the words come out before she can think too much about them, “at some point you have to decide what you want me to be.”

“No,” Mulder replies instantly. “You have to decide, Scully.”

His hazel eyes, meeting hers, are calm and steady, but they contain a question, too.

She thinks again, for the four thousandth time, of his expression in the thirty seconds after he kissed her, weeks ago now, on New Year’s Eve.

At that moment, still feeling the tingle of warmth from his lips, pressed against hers just seconds before, she marvelled at what she thought she saw in his expression: awe, joy, wonder, love. Later, she had questioned this perception; it could so easily have been distorted by her own emotional state. She had wondered whether his smile could have actually been festive holiday cheer, deep meaningful camaraderie. Sometimes, she even told herself that would really be for the best after all, that really was all she wanted from him. Isn’t that why she wanted him as a donor for her child? Other times her cheeks burned from the shame of her desperation for more, so much more.

One’s feelings make everything so traitorous, she thinks. Even your own memory. Even your own objective take on reality.

She holds his stare now, wishing she understood its full meaning, wishing she could parse the ambiguity of this conversation.

But these are not the kinds of thoughts she voices. She turns back to their walk.

Chapter Text

For a moment they stride along again, side by side, not saying a word. Willow Park’s morning unfolds around them. The sun bathes the neighborhood in lemony light. Mulder swings the gas can idly back and forth between them.

Somewhere nearby, a car honks, and it startles Scully. She looks up to notice a line of traffic now beginning to back up on the street. Morning commuters, some of whom now peer over at the agents, their expressions drowsy and bored, through their car windows. She and Mulder walking have become unexciting morning rush hour entertainment.

“It’s not true,” Scully says, inadvertently making eye contact with a woman nearby in an SUV. The woman clutches a giant coffee cup and surveys Scully’s outfit coolly over her sunglasses. “What you said before. That I never look foolish. I look foolish constantly, Mulder.”

“No,” Mulder says decisively. “Nope. Incorrect. No one looks less foolish than Dana Scully.”

“I eat bee pollen in my yogurt, although there is little scientific support for it,” Scully says to him. “It’s inconsistent. You yourself tell me it’s silly.”

“That’s laughably bad evidence, Scully. I’m a notoriously unreliable narrator.”

“I have made guest appearances in several X-files now,” she points out. “As though I were some common flukeman or Sasquatch. It’s humiliating, really.”

“Come on. Who hasn’t?”

Scully considers for a moment whether to bring out the big guns.

“I had a one-night stand with a suspect in an X-file,” Scully says. “ Unprofessional and embarrassing.”

“Again, who hasn’t?”

Scully shoots him a surprised look. But he isn’t looking at her, and she doesn’t ask.

“All right. I remain rigid on the topic of supernatural explanation despite extensive experience to the contrary,” she says. “Even though deep down I think I know … I ought to be moving past that.”

Mulder raises his eyebrows. He pauses a beat. “Okay. That’s getting a little better,” he says slowly. “Although I would say it is more a struggle for you personally than ‘looking foolish’ to anyone else.”

“The question of what I can believe in is never just about me personally,” Scully says, her voice soft. “My beliefs and my doubts are about the dynamics of my partnership, too.”

That observation truly surprises Mulder, at least judging by the expression on his face.

He considers it in silence, still swinging the gas can, chewing his lip.

They walk past the mango man’s house again. There is no sign of him, his son or the mango cart, save one errant, lonely, bruised mango that must have rolled off the flat, lying now next to a fractured terracotta flower pot in the yard. Scully wonders if the man has already headed down to the beach to theatrically sell his mango blossoms to beachcombers and tourists. She wonders if he enjoys his work, if it brings him joy.

She turns to Mulder, the memory of mangoes still sweet and spicy in her mouth, and gathers her courage, keeping her tone neutral.

“What one-night stand did you have that was part of an X-file, Mulder?”

“So you didn’t miss that, huh.”

“Did it happen recently?”

Mulder stares back at her with interest. Observing her expression, he smiles in a sly way that makes her want to punch him in the face again.

“No. But I’m intrigued by the possibility that you might not like that idea.”

Scully shifts her eyes away coolly. “Never mind. It’s none of my business.”

“None of your business?” Mulder says, an edge of sarcasm. “Oh, you mean because we’re just totally professional work partners?” He looks around dramatically. “Are the cameras following us again, Scully?”

She doesn’t say anything, feeling like every possible response is a trap.

“I came out here to LA, actually, on a case by myself, back when you were gone, after Duane Barry, years ago,” Mulder says. He pauses, turning to look at the faint smudge of hills visible in the distance, blurry in the morning haze and smog. “And I slept with a suspect. A vampire. Well. You wouldn’t have said she was a real vampire, but at minimum, she was a woman involved in some kind of serious blood-related sexual activity. It was one of my sloppiest professional moments -- which, as you know, is saying a lot -- and she ended up dead, at the end of the case. I sat in hills like those, way over there in the distance, and I held your cross in my hands, and I cried. It’s really for the best that the cameras weren’t there that day.”

Scully notices her feet have ceased walking. Unable to stop herself, she fishes her cross necklace out of the neck of her sweater, regards it for a moment, rolling it over in her fingers, trying to picture its role in this sordid story. She doesn’t look at him.

“Mulder,” she says, gripping her cross, and her tone sounds far more schoolmarm-ish than she intends, “why would you do that?”

“Oh,” he says, “you know, clinical depression. A martyr complex that sometimes manifests itself as a compulsion to try to rescue women and girls, which was really, really kicked into high gear at that particular period in my life. Loneliness. Sex drive. Take your pick, mix and match, all of the above.”

“Blood-related sexual activity!” Scully finds herself getting belatedly frightened and angry. “Mulder, did HIV/AIDS cross your mind?”

“I guess I probably forgot to review the pamphlets that night. Hey, maybe you can tell me for the future, Dr. Scully, how safe are kinky contaminated tattoo needles?”

Scully notes by the bright quality in his eyes that he is a little angry, too, and she questions if Mulder’s fear monster theory is right after all. Because any fear monster worth its salt should have eaten a fucking banquet off the two of them, wouldn’t it? Why would it bother itself with the people of Willow Park at all?

Mulder exhales deeply. Reaching out, he lightly touches her arm, seeming to regret his words almost instantly.

“Hey,” he says, tentatively. “Hey, I’m sorry, Scully. That was out of line. The tattoo needle thing. I guess I’m tired, too.”

“No,” Scully replies quickly. “No, I shouldn’t scold you. Your story was years ago. I know you’ve had negative HIV tests since then. I just got -- frightened thinking of the risk. ”

“I’m no fancy medical doctor, but I would guess I’m probably more at risk from routinely getting shot at, and the occasional half-ass brain surgery, and, say, getting digested by a giant killer mushroom ... than from having a one-night stand, like, once a decade.”

His constant risk of death is profoundly unfunny to Scully, but she finds herself laughing at his self-deprecating joke anyway. She knows this is, in part, because he just confirmed he hasn’t had many more secret sexual adventures she doesn’t know about, and this is a relief to her. She loathes feeling like such a predictable, idiot adolescent on this subject. One’s feelings are traitorous.

“Well,” Scully says, “the topics of our discussions are at least as exciting as Steve and Edy’s, Mulder.”

“Oh, they have nothing on us, g-woman.”

“I ended up thinking that Steve and Edy had a rather inspiring relationship. I’m sure Cops will manage to only highlight the parts that make them look most foolish.”

“‘You better appreciate me, or I walk out that door,’” Mulder quotes breezily.

“‘He won’t make love to me,’” Scully quotes back, remembering with a smile.

Mulder pauses a moment, then leans over and says, softly, close to her ear: “Care to make that bet?”

Scully, thrown off balance, turns fully around, weight on her heels, to give him an incredulous look.

“What, Scully?” Mulder shrugs, swinging the gas can. “The FBI has nothing to hide.”

Chapter Text

When Scully finally slides back into her seat in the car after having filled up their tank -- her earlier mistake now rectified to her personal satisfaction -- Mulder has the driver’s seat slightly reclined, his eyes closed.

“I am relieved to learn it’s still possible to tire you out, Mulder.”

“We all fueled up and good to go?” he mumbles, blinking heavily.

“We are,” Scully says, fastening her seat belt. “Now get us out of here, please.”

“Roger that,” Mulder rubs his eyes with both hands briskly and moves to start the car. “Where to, Scully? Disneyland? La Brea Tar Pits? The beach? The world is at our fingertips.”

“Motel shower and bed. No delays.”

“Coming right up, Dr. Joyless.”

Scully folds her hands on her lap and exhales. “I’m not so joyless,” she says. “It was a nice morning walk. All things considered.”

“It was,” agrees Mulder. He is backing the car out of the spot, looking over his shoulder, not at her, but his lips curl into a little smile.

As they drive down the street they have just walked along, past the mango vendor’s house, a police car drives the opposite way. Scully strains to see who is driving it, worried it might be Sergeant Duthie. Duthie would be flummoxed as to why they were still out in Willow Park, why they were not yet back sleeping the night off at the motel. But Duthie, probably, is at home herself by now, hopefully asleep in silk pajamas of her own.

And truthfully, what does it matter if she doesn’t understand? No outsiders, no audience really ever understands the Mulder and Scully Show. Scully indulges in a private smile.

“Hey Scully,” Mulder says, a contemplative tone of voice. “I was thinking about what you said before. And you should know, I do think you were right.”

“Oh? That’s an exciting novelty. Which part?”

“When I said you never looked foolish. You said I was wrong. But I think you were right after all.”

Scully rolls her eyes. “Very nice, Mulder. Classy.”

“It’s possible you do look foolish, sometimes. It’s too much pressure on you to say you never look foolish. Human beings look foolish from time to time.”

“I think there might be a well-intentioned statement in there somewhere?”

“What I should have said … is that you never look foolish to me.”

This unexpected sentimental turn warms Scully’s cheeks, sends little pinpricks to the corners of her eyes. She is quickly afraid they might turn into tears. She turns abruptly to look out the window at the homes and yards and storefronts of Willow Park passing by.

“So, uh, in reference to what you mentioned before, about your beliefs. If you are ever feeling like you might want to take a risk in terms of what you accept as real? Don’t worry about it because of me. You can’t go wrong with me.”

Scully speaks directly to the window. “But if we have a certain set dynamic between us that helps the work along...”

“I hardly think we are about to agree on everything, Scully,” he says. “And besides. Some change, some risk… it could be worth it. I think so, anyway.”

She wants to tell him that he never looks foolish to her, either. She wants to tell him that he always looks admirable and beautiful and brave to her, even when he is being an objective idiot.

She wants to tell him whatever he wants to do next, anywhere he wants to go, any dream he has, she will do it with him, as she knows he would for her.

But these are not the kinds of words she can speak to him.

Not yet.

Faster and faster the world of Willow Park whirls by. Perhaps they are out of Willow Park technically, now; Scully’s Los Angeles geography is questionable at best. Mulder is tapping on the steering wheel lightly, as though there is a song playing only he can hear.

“Maybe you should consider writing a book about our work, Mulder,” Scully suggests softly. “That is something that could have an impact.”

Mulder glances at her, interrupting his steering wheel rhythm. “You think anyone would want to read anything I would write? You think I could sit still enough to get it done?”

“Of course I do,” she says. “Maybe a book could be a way of building something permanent. So you could feel like you were moving to a new stage of life, like you said. That could be your next step.”

“Huh,” he nods, distantly, glancing at her. “One of the steps.”

When Mulder pulls into the parking spot at their motel at long last, he turns his whole body towards her in the seat. He then pins her with his eyes in a way that immediately worries her.

“So. I know you want to go to sleep.”

“I don’t like where this is headed.”

“But I happen to know there is a place across the street,” Mulder points her head towards a bright purple restaurant, replete with colorful plants and ample outdoor seating, “that has a real Scully bait menu. Sprouts and avocados and egg whites and scrambled tofu, and probably toast made with really coarse grain-y bread, all that stuff. I think we should go have a big, gross breakfast before napping. My treat.”

“You already bought us mangoes.”

“It’s your birthday. Almost. It's an early birthday breakfast. Come on, Scully.”

Scully, of course, has already decided she’s going. “Will there be mimosas?”

“There are laws requiring mimosas at brunch in the state of California.”

“I can put off bed for one hour more,” Scully concedes, sighing dramatically. “For early birthday breakfast and mimosas.”

“You won’t regret it. I plan to dazzle you with my many erudite thoughts on the nature of fear,” he says, sliding out of the car.

“Sounds frightening,” Scully comments, stepping out after him. “Are we eating outside?”

Mulder, waiting for her, has extended his arm gallantly. “Oh, I think so. We want to people watch, right?”

Scully reaches out and slips her small hand through his arm, resting her fingers lightly on his bicep. As she looks up at his face, she feels a smile breaking over her face.

“Of course,” she says. “People watching.”

And as they wait to cross the street together, still arm in arm, he leans in to start to tell her about a fear superstition in Tudor England. Her eyes wander across his face as he talks. She feels ready to drink mimosas, to jump in to speak when it is her turn.

She knows her partner is the only person she will really be watching. She knows her partner is the only person she ever watches.