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On a hot Tuesday in July, Fox Mulder finally comes to the realization that he's in love with Dana Scully and has been for an embarrassingly long time. He only wishes it could've happened under less inconvenient circumstances.
Circumstances being a near heart attack at the sight of her feet leaving the ground, and the sound of her slamming into the side of an airplane hanger hard enough to dent the corrugated metal. He shoots the suspect, a psychopathic telekinetic, in the shoulder and lets local police handle whatever happens next while he races to her side, his whole world narrowing to that single point in his vision that is her lying motionless on the ground. She will conjure scientific explanations later for what happened, but in the moment she had felt herself being lifted above the ground, he had seen in her eyes the unmistakable fear of the unknown. It had terrified him.
He is afraid to touch her and yet, illogically, touching her is the only thing that will quell the panic that is slowly building inside of him, bubbling up into his throat and making it hard to breathe. His fingers brush the side of her face gently, and her eyes flutter. His heart does a nauseating flip.
"Hey," he says, in case she can hear him, rubbing her cheekbone lightly with his thumb. "Hey, you're okay. You're gonna be okay," he says as much to himself as to her. He hopes she can't feel how hard his hand is shaking.
Her eyebrows draw together, etching painful lines into her forehead. She inhales sharply and cracks an eye open. "Ouch," she rasps.
He feels an odd soaring giddiness for a moment, his relief is so intense. He smothers his half-crazed chuckle by bringing her hand up to his mouth. He holds it there against his sun-chapped lips until he feels a reasonable distance from the threat of that impending panic attack.
He hears her sigh, a small irritated thing. "I think I have another concussion," she says in the tone of one who has been mildly inconvenienced. He places his free hand on her knee and squeezes, because he does not miss the way those pain lines have not gone away, nor the fact that her face is a bit too pale.
"On the bright side, I think I met my deductible with the one last month," she muses.
There is a slight breeze, the only relief from the merciless heat pouring down on them and radiating up from the concrete, baking them both slowly as they wait for the ambulance. It ruffles a piece of her hair, which he brushes carefully away from her face. "Wow, Scully. That's almost like a buy one get one free." She laughs softly through her nose, and he lets himself smile shakily, ignoring the way it makes him feel that this is her second concussion in less than a month.
"If this causes any temporary memory lapses, I apologize in advance," she says. Last month she'd forgotten his birthday and, unrelated, the fact that he did not like sausage on his pizza. That realization had come once she'd fully recovered, and she'd made it up to him by taking him to a viewing of 'The Thing' at a small art house theater and treating him to a 16-inch, sausage-free pizza afterwards.
He squeezes her hand and presses his forehead against it, feeling so lovesick he is unable to make a joke in response. "There's no need to apologize," he says, his voice disappointingly fond and guileless. She gives a small tight-lipped smile, and he wonders if she can tell how much of a goner he is. It makes him feel weak and vulnerable, and he would not complain if her concussed brain happened to conveniently forget this moment.
"Hey," she says with a soft confusion, drawing his gaze. "It's okay." In a startling role reversal, she’s comforting him, he realizes. She’s laid out on the ground with blood running down her temple, and she’s trying to make him feel better. He feels ridiculous, but she is touching his face, so he currently lacks the sufficient will to care.
"I'm sorry I keep dragging you into these things," he says.
"Mulder, stop that," she admonishes. "You have never dragged me anywhere. If I'm with you it's because I want to be here," she says firmly. "And because I wouldn't get paid if I didn't," she finishes lightly. "Now will you please help me up so I can sit in the shade until the ambulance gets here? I think the police are starting to question our sanity."
Sure enough, he turns his head to find four of Reno's finest trying suddenly to look busy doing anything other than staring at them.
"Are you sure it's okay to move you, Scully? You could have spinal damage."
"Right now the only thing I have is a headache, but if I lie here any longer, I'll also have a sunburn." She makes a compelling point. He helps her sit up carefully, bracing a hand at the back of her neck. He entertains the notion of picking her up, but it's a very small notion, because in all likelihood she would punch him if he tried. So he wraps her arm around his neck and slowly helps her up.
One of the officers lets her sit in the passenger seat of his squad car. Mulder turns the air conditioner on full blast and squats down in front of the open door, watching her carefully for signs of nausea, fatigue, dizziness, or anything else worrisome.
"You know I'm okay, right?" she says seriously. Her eyes are closed, sparing him from that razor sharp and all-seeing gaze. "It's probably just a minor concussion."
"I know you are, I just..." he trails off, at a loss, gripping her knee to steady himself as he adjusts his position from an awkward squat to an uncomfortable kneel.
She opens her eyes, regarding him carefully with a diagnostician's gaze. "What's gotten into you? You're acting strange ... even for you."
"I don't know. I don't know what's wrong with me." It's a lie, of course. He feels a pang of guilt, looking into her unapologetically honest eyes.
"Maybe I should have them examine you, too," she says lightly. All he can manage is a sad smile.
"Hey," she says again. He lifts his eyes to meet hers, positively radiant in the light of the scorching sun. "What are you doing after this?"
"Going with you to the hospital," he says flatly, which makes her roll her eyes fondly.
"After that."
Going home to wallow in self-pity at the sad state of his heart, which has totally and completely given itself over to one Dana Katherine Scully. "Nothing."
"Come over to my place, we'll have dinner and watch TV. You can wake me up every hour if I fall asleep. It'll be fun."
Unbidden, a crooked smile spreads across his face, and he feels what he suspects to be the beginning of a return to normalcy. "Well how could I say no to an offer like that."
* * *
On the ambulance, he regales her with a colorful retelling of an even more colorful Enquirer article he'd read about a pair of college students who had had a beer with Bigfoot while out camping in the woods. The account was so ridiculous as to arouse doubt in even the likes of him, but he'd suspected it would make her laugh, and he was right. "They said he preferred Heineken, Scully," he says with the utmost seriousness, eliciting an adorable giggle from her. The surge of pure love and devotion he gets when he hears it is almost nauseating. He loves her so much.
At the hospital she is diagnosed with a minor concussion and, as she had predicted, told to take NSAIDs and have someone wake her every hour. On the ride home she nurses a headache and looks out the window pensively. She gets a bout of dizziness when getting out of the car, and he rushes around the other side and escorts her up the stairs despite her protests.
Once inside, she changes into a sweatshirt and a pair of sweatpants, and he takes off his jacket and tie and rolls up his shirt sleeves. They eat leftover pizza, which they had ordered two nights before and never finished, and talk over sitcom reruns with the volume turned low. All the while he tries to ignore how heart achingly perfect this night is to him. He wants to share these mundane moments with her, the way they share the dangerous, adrenaline-fueled ones. He wants to share every facet of his life with her. She munches on a slice of pepperoni, completely unaware.
But he has never been able to hide from her. He feels that searingly intuitive gaze before she says anything. "Talk to me, Mulder," she says, setting down her plate. "What is it?" The inquiry is so caring that he knows she would move heaven and earth for him to make this better if she could. It doesn't make this any easier.
"It's nothing, Scully," he says, endeavoring to make his tone match the words. It falls flat, and she narrows her eyes with singular focus.
"Don't lie to me." And then, more tenderly, "You know you can talk to me about anything, right? It's part of the 'best friend' job description."
His heart beats in his throat. He can feel tingling in his fingertips, too. If he were standing, he'd be weak at the knees, the fool. "I uh," he says intelligently. She waits for more, eyebrow raised. He clears his throat, hoping for intelligibility this time. "Scully, it's never been easy watching you get injured in the line of duty. But lately I can hardly stand it."
She frowns. "What's different about lately?" she gently prompts.
"The way I feel about you."
As he watches confusion, and then wide-eyed understanding dawn on her face, it occurs to him that he never imagined he'd be confessing his love to her over Seinfeld reruns and the remains of a two-day-old pizza.
"The thing is, Scully, I think I've loved you for awhile and just didn't realize it."
Her face becomes unreadable. "You ... love me?"
He falters, all momentum lost. "Well ... yes. What did you think I was talking about?"
She shrugs. "I mean, I knew you had a little crush, but-"
"-You knew?"
"Well, Mulder, you're a pretty easy read. You've always worn your feelings on your sleeve." She says it in a consoling way, like she's breaking it to him that he has contracted some embarrassing ailment.
He scrubs a hand over his face, feeling flushed, feverish perhaps. Maybe he's just dying. "Scully, I just can't take this anymore. It's eating me up inside. I've never felt this way about anyone before. I love you."
"Mulder-"
"-But I want you to know that this doesn't have to change anything between us."
"Mulder-"
"-I love you but I'd rather suffer through this alone than lose you entirely."
"Mulder-"
"I don't expect anything from you Scully, and we can just go on as we did before if that's what you want."
"-Mulder!"
He stops, doing a fair impression of a dear in headlights. "What?" he ventures softly.
She rolls her eyes. "I love you too, you dummy." and then she wraps her arms around his neck and kisses him.
She pulls back, and he stares, stunned, until her amused smile turns to concern. "Mulder? You okay?" A hand on his arm jolts him back to the present, and ignites every one of the nerves in his body, which all seem to be singing this is happening, this is happening.
Yep, this is happening.
"I'm sorry Scully." I was a bit distracted by all of my stars aligning for the first time in my life. "I think my brain stopped working for a second there. Could you run that by me again?"
She laughs, and he wraps his arms around her when she kisses him again.
"I guess that concussion was worth it," she says against his lips, and he laughs, feeling lightheaded and giddy and so incredibly complete.