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Everyday is like Halloween in this place.
If Scully were one to believe in prophetic words she might have guessed Mulder to be clairvoyant. Of course, that would have implied that Mulder had the gift of foresight which was generous at best. In those moments of deep and uncomfortable introspection Scully came to dissect what it was that had drawn her to Mulder and kept her down in that basement with her. She had been immediately endearing, her hair tied in a bun that would have been reprimanded at Quantico. A loose shirt that had been picked without a second thought, rolled up to her elbows.
Do you think I’m spooky?
Maybe at the Academy she had been amused about those references. About the mysterious prodigy agent, an Oxford educated psychologist who had famously tossed her career in favor of chasing specters and aliens into the night. Mulder’s thin frame towered over her, as she thumbed her crucifix. She wouldn’t hold it against her if Scully left. Of course she was territorial, Scully not always agreed with her but respected their process. It sank in then. That they had created this intimate, secret place between the two of them. No one else could tread on it, they could only be intruders.
A youthful indiscretion on a misty night atop Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s grave in Windlesham.
Phoebe Green had been one of those intruders Scully resented so much. Because Mulder had welcomed her into the fold and those other rumors had been confirmed. Shock and the Church, she reasoned, was what colored her gut reaction to Phoebe Green. Who she, inadvertently, referred to the other woman in passing thought. A meanness was lathered in the woman’s humor, a cruelty that was explained away by her dryness. But then of course, that lurid detail had been dropped on her and Scully’s jaw had locked. The idea of a young Mulder, completely enamored by this woman. Getting herself dragged through a cemetery. No. In a free moment of wandering through her local library’s shelves she just happened to fact check that claim. Conan Doyle was reburied Minstead in 1955. Taking an irrational leap perhaps, she was satisfied to conclude that graveyard misadventure was a complete fabrication.
What was not an irrational leap was the logical conclusion that the shock and resentment she had felt were the more familiar jealousy. It made Scully spend her free time reading psychology journals and keeping those articles under a lock and key on her nightstand. How had Mulder gone about this discovery? She had probably dived head first, found a counter-culture magazine and gotten entrance to one of those underground clubs. A tenderness spread through her, thinking of a determined lonely girl who only had the freedom to explore this space because no one paid her mind. She imagined her waves of hair and raggedy t-shirts she refused to throw out. It took Scully a while to truly comprehend that Mulder never hid who she was. Not her beliefs, her disdain, her anger, that melancholy and empathy that reduced her to tears after some cases.
It was the clarity of her feelings that made everything more difficult. Harder to navigate. But it was the way things were meant to be, there was no other option. Partners.
Well, why else would you want me out there with you? You didn’t want to be there? Ah, that’s, um, self-righteous and narcissistic of me to say, isn’t it?
It was Halloween. The real mystery is how Mulder had never mentioned that it was the perfect inversion of her birthday and tried to attach some para-psychological element to it. She must hold the record for the most sick days used in the Bureau’s history. This time, Mulder had broken her arm tumbling down a hill in Point Pleasant, West Virginia. She just had to chase after the shadow of the Mothman. Knowing Mulder she would be folding pizza and then taking a swig of the beer she told her not to drink with pain medication. Scully thought she could indulge in some corny traditions and show up with a whole sweet potato pie. She used her spare key (she had compartmentalized that and refused to address it in therapy) and was greeted by the visible white glow of Mulder’s old television.
“Mulder?”
“Scully?” The surprise in her voice was followed by the tell-tale crinkle of aluminum wrappers. She soon hobbled out, dressed down to boxer shorts. Her arm out of the sling she had instructed her to wear and one of her socks was missing. “Everything OK?”
“Yeah, I thought I would–” I would check up on you. The easy concern of a partner. But they seemed to have crossed into a new place. Where things were not defined and they had grown more hesitant in dark hallways. “I wanted to come over.”
“Ah, Scully-Gully thought you would join the twenty-four hour classic horror fest,” Mulder smiled in that new way that managed to be flirtatious and the most horribly irksome thing. “And you brought an offering.”
“Oh brother.” She told her, even as if she slipped out of her coat. “I’m going to regret this.”
“I’ll make it worth your while.”