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It was a Sunday afternoon, and a pleasantly cool breeze cut through the heat of the full spring sun. Mulder was descending the ladder for the last time, having just finished cutting back the tree branches hanging threateningly close to Maggie Scully’s roof. He was sweaty and bronzed, having discarded his shirt several hours ago, arms covered in small scratches, hands callused from an afternoon of uncharacteristically hard labor.
The younger Scully woman was just coming to meet him with a large glass of water when his feet hit the ground. Her eyes traced his figure brazenly, and she gave him a small, closed smile along with the drink.
“Thanks,” he said, taking the water gratefully and emptying the glass in two long gulps. He didn’t see the way she watched his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed, or how her tongue subconsciously peeked out to dampen her lip.
“No, thank you,” she finally responded, coming back to the present moment. “I really appreciate you doing this for mom, she’s been putting the work off for a while and Bill isn’t going to be back on this coast anytime soon…” Mulder waved his free hand in a gesture of dismissal.
“I’m happy to do it,” he said with a smile, and that was the real bitch of it–he was. He was genuinely happy to help her mother with household tasks, and have lunch with her, even field her phone calls on birthdays and holidays. He loved her mom, and her mom was borderline-obsessed with him. It was getting more and more difficult to find reasons not to just kiss him already. Especially when he was sweaty and shirtless and–
“All done!” he said suddenly, to someone just over her shoulder, and she turned to find her mother coming out with a big, beaming smile, the kind she typically reserved for her grandchildren, and Mulder.
“Fox, you’re an angel,” she said with gratitude, brushing past Scully to put her hands on either side of his sweaty face, drag him down to her level, and kiss his cheek. “I don’t know how I can repay you.” He shook his head bashfully.
“Anything I can do to help, Maggie, honest,” he said.
“At least let me make you lunch,” she said, and he demurred.
“You don’t have to do that…” he began, but she shook her head.
“I’ve already done it, Fox, it’s on the table inside,” she said, and Scully rolled her eyes, having seen that coming a mile out. She caught his eye and gave him a smile and an eyebrow raise, as if to tell him he should’ve known, and he chuckled and shrugged.
“If you insist,” he said with a grin before he quickly disappeared in the direction of promised food. Maggie gave her daughter a somewhat pointed look, and followed him inside. Scully sighed as she moved in that direction. Her mother had become more and more curious about the nature of her relationship with Mulder in recent years, and while she understood the intrigue, she had no answers to the questions Maggie kept asking.
She had wondered, the other night, if they might not finally break through their holding pattern–wrapped in his arms, laughing and joking, hitting baseballs late into the night… it seemed like the perfect opportunity for him to make a move, but he never did. Sometimes she wondered if she was even worse at reading nonverbal cues than she thought, because every time she thought he might feel the same way, it never materialized.
When she made her way into the kitchen, Mulder had already wolfed down all but a few crusty remains of a sandwich, and was working on a mountain of potato salad. Maggie was pouring him a glass of sweet tea when she saw Scully come into the room. She chewed the inside of her cheek thoughtfully for a moment, and Scully froze; she knew before she even opened her mouth exactly what the expression on her mother’s face meant. It meant trouble, primarily for her.
“Say, Fox,” she said, setting the drink down in front of him and wandering aimlessly around the kitchen, as though she were just spitballing thoughts and not carefully calculating the movements of their lives like a chess grandmaster. “I just thought of something…”
I bet you did, Scully thought to herself darkly as she sat down at the table, picking up his sweet tea and taking a sip.
“Yeah?” he asked, picking his head up from the potato salad and looking at Maggie curiously, completely unaware of what was happening.
“Well, I have a small problem–it’s Dana’s problem, really,” she said, and Scully felt her stomach clench. She hated not being able to predict her next move. “See, she plays on the parish softball team…”
“You play softball?” Mulder asked as his gaze bounced to her, his eyebrows shooting up with surprise. She tilted her head noncommittally.
“I don’t know that you could call it ‘playing’, mostly I just stand in center field,” Scully said. “And I only get to do that when we’re not on a case.” She immediately regretted the last part; his face drew into a guilty grimace, as though he had taken something from her.
“Yes, well, the team is rather large, so we typically have enough players on any given night. But this week has been a real doozy, half the team works in the church preschool and they’ve all got hand-foot-and-mouth disease, if you can believe it…” Maggie prattled on about so-and-so’s blistering rash and Scully pressed her lips together into a thin line.
“... and if we don’t scrounge up enough players before our next game, we’ll have to forfeit, and I just can’t stand to see that Rosalind Eberstein’s smug face if we have to forfeit to St. John the Baptist again. Anyway, Dana told me about your little outing the other night, and it sounded like you two had so much fun together–” Scully, turning a brilliant shade of pink, choked on another stolen sip of tea. “–that I thought, maybe Fox would like to play!” Scully cleared her throat and shook her head simultaneously.
“Mom, Mulder doesn’t want–”
“I’d love to,” he said, cutting her off.
“Fantastic!” Maggie said, beaming at the two of them, completely ignoring Scully’s exasperated glare. “Tuesday night at Our Lady of Good Help, game starts at seven.”
+++
Scully spent all of Monday looking for a case with even the thinnest pretext to send them out of town by Tuesday evening, but Mulder would not bite. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to spend time with him–she just didn’t want to spend time with him and her mother and all the women on her team, who would no doubt ask a million and one prying questions about their relationship status.
When roughly six-thirty Tuesday rolled around, she pulled into the parking lot at Our Lady of Good Help Catholic Church with tense trepidation gripping her stomach. If she was lucky, they would make it through this without too much awkward questioning and blatant prodding from her mother. The weather, at least, was pleasant–a chill evening breeze blew across the field, lit by the big flood lights they’d installed year before last, and crickets chirruped behind the rising, friendly voices calling out to each other.
Her mother was already there, toting the large scorekeeper’s binder, and so was Mulder, leaned against the fence and chatting amiably with Maggie. Scully couldn’t help but smile when she saw him, and when his eyes caught sight of her over her mother’s shoulder, his cheeks split into a broad grin.
“Well, if it isn’t Doris Sams,” he said as she approached, and she took note of the way his eyes skated down her bare legs, the hem of her athletic shorts dangerously high on the thigh. With what appeared to be great difficulty, he dragged his eyes back up the length of her to her face and gave a slightly guilty shrug. She just chuckled.
“I see you’ve already met the team manager,” she said, gesturing towards her mother.
“I have, she runs a tight ship,” he said. “I’ve been informed that I’ll be playing first.”
“We haven’t had a good first baseman since Tom Seabanks blew out his knee,” Maggie said with real regret. “Don’t disappoint me, Fox.”
“Aye aye, captain” he said, offering an exaggerated salute. She laughed out loud and patted his shoulder as she left them to each other’s company, having spotted a silver-haired woman sporting a red t-shirt that said ST JOHN THE BAPTIST across the back. Scully sighed and leaned against the tall chain-link fence next to him, their shoulders bumping together.
“Sorry my mom dragged you into this,” she said, and he gave her a confused look.
“Dragged me? Hardly. I’m having fun. Wanna warm up? I haven’t thrown the ball around in forever,” he asked, and she nodded.
“Think your arm can handle it?” she asked as she grabbed a glove off the bleachers, and he chuffed a laugh as he followed behind her, trying not to be obvious as he appreciated the view.
“Don’t worry, my arm gets plenty of action, just not quite in that general motion,” he replied, and that finally got her laughing, really laughing, and loosened up in the shoulders.
But the ease didn’t last long between them–it seemed that the anxious tension had been psychically transmitted from her mind to his as they tossed the ball back and forth in the infield. Man after man approached Scully to say hello and exchange a few words with her, all of them tall and fit and Catholic, and Mulder scowled at each of them like they’d offended him personally.
Scully was pleasant and familiar with all of them, and it made his stomach lurch; had she been on dates with any of these men? Did she want to? They were clearly interested in her, it was obvious from the way they approached her, even from a distance; was any of that interest mutual? That old, familiar fear–the same fear that stopped him from kissing her on another baseball field, another night–gripped his gut again.
“Mulder, heads up!” she shouted, snapping him out of his spinning thoughts as the ball whizzed past his left ear.
“Sorry!” he yelled back, turning and plodding after the ball. At roughly that moment Maggie blew her whistle and waved the players in, indicating that it was time to get started. They all circled up to start the evening with a prayer, and Mulder frowned, noticing how many men went out of their way to crowd around Scully, jockeying for a position next to her in the circle. Mulder knew he probably should’ve felt bad, the way he elbowed them out of the way and stood menacingly at her side, leering at them like a possessive bulldog. But he didn’t.
Scully looked up at him with slightly furrowed brows, her expression mildly confused, but said nothing, and when he smiled down at her sheepishly she returned the smile and reached out for his hand. Hers was pleasantly warm in his grasp, and when she threaded her fingers between his, they both flushed in the cheeks.
“... in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,” Maggie’s rival captain said, and everyone in the circle let go of their neighbor and made the familiar, but mysterious cross over their front–except Mulder, who just held onto Scully’s hand and watched them curiously. “Amen. Let’s play ball!”
+++
Everyone on the team ranged somewhere between ‘fair’ and ‘decent’, with a few ascending to the ranks of ‘good.’ At the top of the second inning, when Scully stepped up to the plate and hit a line drive, Mulder’s mouth opened in surprise.
“You’re joking!” he shouted from the bench as she ran, and he could hear her distant, panting laughter as she rounded first and plowed towards second. As the next batter approached the plate, the man seated next to Mulder leaned in and introduced himself.
“Hank Zeigler,” he said, offering Mulder a hand, and Mulder shook it.
“Fox Mulder,” he said, and the way Hank’s eyebrows shot up at the mention of his name didn’t escape him.
“How do you know Dana?” Hank asked, getting straight to the point. Mulder withheld a scoff.
“We’re partners,” he said.
“Law enforcement, right?” he asked, and Mulder gave a curt nod of confirmation.
“FBI,” he specified.
“Nice,” Hank said appreciatively. Mulder knew there was absolutely nothing offensive about this man, he was just making conversation, but he couldn’t help but feel his hackles raise like a dog nonetheless. “I’m in finance.” Mulder just nodded in acknowledgement.
“Oh, you’re Dana’s work partner?” another man asked, jumping into the conversation. Mulder eyed him warily.
“Yeah,” he said in response. The man perked up.
“Do you know if she’s seeing anyone?” the nameless man–blonde and broad and looking like he belonged in a JC Penney catalog–asked. Mulder frowned.
“Why?” he asked, and he heard the way the word came out of his mouth and regretted it immediately. He knew she wouldn’t want him behaving this way, defensive and surly, like her honor was at stake and needed defending, and he felt a pang of shame.
“Why do you think, man?” he asked with a laugh. “I’ve been trying to ask her out for ages, but she always dodges the subject.”
“Maybe she’s dodging you,” another man ribbed good-naturedly, and Mulder couldn’t help but laugh, albeit anxiously.
“It’s not just you,” Hank admitted. “I asked her out to dinner a couple months back; she said she was seeing someone.” Mulder felt his stomach clench like a fist, and his whole body felt as though it had been plunged into ice water.
She said she was seeing someone?
What were the chances she made it up just so she could let him down easy? Wouldn’t he know if she was seeing someone? With as much time as they spent together, the way they were so intimately entwined in each other’s existence? How could he have missed something like that? Unless… was she hiding it from him? There was a time when he wouldn’t have even considered it, but something had fractured between them when Diana Fowley came barreling into their lives; he thought they were repairing, moving forward even… but maybe he was wrong.
“Have you ever seen the guy?” Mulder asked, his mouth desperately dry. Hank shook his head.
“No, and you know, I asked about that, too. She said he’s not Catholic,” he explained with a shrug. “I gotta admit, when I saw the way you were talking to Maggie earlier, I thought it was you, man.” Mulder cleared his throat, which felt like it was closing up with anxiety, and shook his head.
“No,” he said hoarsely. “Not me.”
At about that time Scully crossed home plate to joyous applause and came jogging lightly into the dugout, sweaty and flushed in the cheeks. She took a swig of her Gatorade, completely oblivious to Mulder’s mental agony.
“Great double you hit earlier,” Hank said, eager for her attention.
“Thanks,” she said, without even bothering to look over at him. Her gaze was trained on Mulder, who looked a little pale. “You okay, Mulder?” He looked up at her with a pinched smile and nodded, doing his best to bite back his insecurity and anxiety and just be a pleasant teammate, even though right now he felt like his world was crashing down around him.
“Yeah,” he said distantly. “Yeah, I’m fine.” She took his wrist delicately between her fingers and felt for his pulse, frowning.
“Your heart is racing, have you been drinking enough water?” she asked with concern. He looked up at her with a soft, sad smile, and it made her heart ache. He swallowed and nodded.
“Yeah, I’m okay Scully, really,” he reassured, picking up his own Gatorade and choking down a swallow. “See?” She pressed her lips together in a gesture he had come to learn meant she didn’t believe him, but was going to let it go for the time being. She settled for reaching out towards him, ruffling her fingers through his thick, unruly hair and following the curve of his head to his neck, where she scratched her nails gently over his skin. He hummed pleasantly, and for a moment all was right with the world. Hank and the unnamed man watched the scene with shock and disappointment.
Later, as they got up to take their spots in the field, Hank spoke gruffly into Mulder’s ear.
“If you’re really not the guy she’s seeing, then you need to step back before you ruin her reputation,” he grumbled, passing Mulder with a rough, clearly intentional bump of the shoulder. Mulder gaped at him, unable to respond even if he’d wanted to.
(If he had, he’d tell the man that he’d been saying the same thing to her for years.)
+++
The game finished 6-5 in favor of Our Lady of Good Help, and everyone gathered for pizza in the parish hall afterwards, sweaty and worn out and hungry. Scully kept fussing over Mulder and forcing water on him, still thinking the cause of his pallor and emotional downturn was dehydration, which he felt bad about. As a result he did his best to remain upbeat and jocular as they ate, so much so that it was beginning to come off a little insincere.
“I’m sorry if you’re uncomfortable,” she said suddenly, and he looked up at her with his eyebrows furrowed slightly, his slice of pizza halfway to his mouth.
“I’m not,” he said, and she frowned.
“You’re acting weird,” she said bluntly, and Mulder chuckled. “I thought maybe it was because you were uncomfortable with the, you know, religious aspect.” He shook his head and nudged her foot with his.
“I’m not, really,” he reassured, sighing. “Sorry, I’m…”
“Dana!” a voice called out, and she sighed impatiently through her nose, wishing they had gone somewhere with fewer interruptions. A woman maybe his age or a little older, who he’d seen in the outfield earlier, approached them with a wide smile.
“Hi Lenore,” she said, maybe a little more curtly than she typically would have, trying to be polite while simultaneously indicating that she did not want to engage in idle conversation right now. The woman didn’t seem to notice, her eyes fixed on Mulder instead.
“Is this the guy you’re seeing?” Lenore asked excitedly, and Scully suddenly turned a wild shade of pink. Mulder felt a fresh wave of nausea wash over him, and he set his pizza down, clenching his jaw against the rising sensation in the back of his throat.
“Uh…” Scully stammered, surprisingly inarticulate.
“The one you work with?” Lenore prompted, as though Scully had forgotten that detail. Now Scully wasn’t just pink, she was red, her face glowing so bright that Mulder thought if he held his hands up to her cheeks, he might just feel the heat.
“Yes,” he said suddenly, before he knew the word was going to escape his lips. Scully, whose head had dropped appreciably, looked up at him, her eyebrows creeping towards her hairline. He brushed his hand against his shorts and held it out to Lenore to shake, hoping it wasn’t sweaty. “Fox Mulder, pleasure to meet you.”
“Lenore Bennet, pleasure’s all mine!” she said fondly. “Maggie talks about you all the time, Fox, it’s always some wild story about her daughter the FBI agent and her handsome, charming boyfriend.” This time Scully actually let out a small, but audible groan, while Mulder’s cheeks flushed faintly pink under his olive skin.
“Uh, thank you,” he said awkwardly, not knowing what else to say. Lenore seemed to finally pick up on their body language and reiterated her pleasure at meeting him, then left them to themselves.
No sooner had she walked away than Scully stood up abruptly from the table and turned on her heel, making a beeline towards the exit at the back of the hall. Mulder stumbled over his feet as he got up too, following quickly after her, just catching the door as it swung shut behind her.
“Scully, wait,” he panted as he followed after her into the tree line, baffled by her behavior. The trees were thick and she was small and fast; it only took him a moment to realize he couldn’t find her.
“Scully!” he called out again, but he heard nothing–no response, and no movement in the forest around him. Sighing, he sat down at the base of a large hickory tree. “Scully, I don’t want to get lost, so I’m going to wait here for you. Please come talk to me. I don’t understand anything that just happened, but I do know you’re upset…” He didn’t know what else to say, so he didn’t, waiting in silence as the last semblance of twilight faded out into utter darkness. The only light came in the form of the bright halogen lights on the athletic field in the distance, filtering through the dense undergrowth.
Finally, he heard something take a few slow, cautious steps in his direction, and he held his breath, as though she were a deer he was afraid of scaring off. In some ways, she was worse. When she finally spoke, her voice came from behind him, on the opposite side of the large tree trunk.
“My mom does this,” she said, her tone quiet and mortified. “She tells people we’re dating, all the time. I don’t know if it’s because she’s ashamed of me for not having married yet, or because she loves you so much, or some combination of the two. And I just… don’t set the record straight anymore.” Her voice had fallen to a whisper by the last word, almost drowned out by the sounds of the night surrounding them, crickets and whip-poor-wills and bats squeaking somewhere far away.
“It’s okay, I get it,” he said, trying to keep the laughter out of his voice because of her level of distress, but also deeply amused by the idea that Maggie had been telling this lie to everyone she knows. “How long has she been doing that for?” Scully groaned.
“At least a year,” she said, her voice somewhat muffled, as though her hands were covering her face. Mulder finally laughed, but it quickly died away as another thought pushed to the forefront of his mind.
“Scully, are you seeing someone?” he asked quickly, the words spilling out over his lips before he could stop himself. She took in a sharp breath.
“What? No, of course not,” she said, her tone surprised and a little annoyed. “Where’d that come from?” He released the breath he’d been holding in a sigh, both relieved and also ashamed of himself, for many reasons.
“Some of the guys on the team were talking about it, while you were on base,” he admitted, and she groaned. “They said you were. They asked me, and I didn’t know.”
“Mulder,” she said, and her tone wasn’t impatient, but tired.
“I thought…” he began, not knowing what to say. He paused, but she didn’t rescue him, forcing him to articulate his thoughts. “I guess I was, um, afraid that… maybe… you were hiding it.” He heard her sigh on the other side of the tree, and she didn’t say anything for a long, painful moment. Then he heard the crunch of leaves beneath her, and for a desperate moment he was certain she was walking away from him. That tight, terrified feeling in his throat returned, but before he could spin out completely, he realized she was walking around to his side of the tree, her expression inscrutable in the dim light. She sat down next to him, her body small and warm against his.
“I did tell them I was seeing someone,” she admitted quietly, her arms drawn around herself, like she was cold, or scared. His heart was hammering wildly in his chest. There was a pause so long he thought she was done talking, and almost opened his mouth to say something, anything, to break the awkward silence, but then she spoke again. “I got tired of being asked on dates.”
“Oh?” he said, whipping his head around. She pressed her lips together in a firm line and nodded.
“Yeah,” she said.
“Why?” he asked dumbly. Her lips turned up briefly at the corners, like she might smile, and she scoffed lightly.
“Because I’m not interested in dating any of them,” she elaborated, barely able to force the words out. Suddenly he understood, and a new feeling replaced the abject terror gripping his chest; it was warm and full, like a balloon inflating inside of him.
“Oh!” he repeated, knowing how stupid he sounded but struggling to articulate his sudden emotional upswing more intelligently. “Uh… well… good,” he finally responded. “Good. ‘Cause, uh, I don’t want you to date any of them.” She finally cracked a smile, barely visible in the light falling between the trees, and Mulder took a chance and reached his arm around her shoulders. She let him, turning towards him and leaning into his side as he tightened his grip, holding her firmly against him.
After a long, quiet moment, she looked up at him, finally meeting his eyes in the dark. There was an intensity there that he realized he’d seen before–in the hall outside his apartment, last year, shortly before a bee intervened. This time, to his knowledge, there were no bees. He brought a hand to her cheek, then around to the back of her head, pushing his fingers through her thick auburn hair. She didn’t need any further words.
Their mouths met, soft but firm, insistent, demanding. Her tongue immediately ran along his lip, and he returned the gesture, each exploring the other with passionate intrigue, their hands roaming and grasping at each other’s bodies. They finally broke for air, almost panting, their lips wet and full, eyes dilated. Aroused.
“Wow,” she breathed, and he chuckled.
“Wow indeed,” he agreed, and she smiled shyly. He reached for her hand and brought it up to his mouth, kissing her knuckles softly, captivated by her gaze. “I’d say that was a home run.” She laughed, the sound warming him all the way to his toes.
“I think technically that’s first base, Mulder,” she corrected him, and he rolled his eyes.
“Okay, well, at least I’m on base,” he said, rising to his feet and pulling her up with him. She pushed herself up on her toes and pressed another kiss to his swollen mouth, and he could feel her smiling into it.
“You certainly are.”