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“Hey, Scully?”
“Yeah?”
“What is the craziest thing you’ve ever done?”
She slumps back on the small, lumpy couch, trying to ignore the slightly moldy scent wafting up from the depth beneath the dusty cushions. “I don’t know.”
“Come on. It can be anything.”
“Okay.” She sighs. “Coming out here with you to get stuck in the middle of nowhere, having to spend the night in this freezing old cabin, joining you on a ghost hunt that is not even part of a case we’re working on.”
“Apart from that.”
“That’s not good enough for you?”
“Not even a little,” he says and puts on that smile, the one that is responsible for her being out here on a Saturday night with him in the first place. “You’ll have to do better than that. You’ve got nothing from your wild youth? No drunken mistakes in college? No shoplifting, skinny dipping in a neighbor’s pool, nothing?”
“Sorry to disappoint you,” she says, leaning forward to stretch out her hands, holding them closer to the pitifully small fire in the damp fireplace, eagerly soaking up what little heat it offers. “But I’m afraid I’ve never done any of those things.”
“Come on, it’s me,” he says, and the softness in his voice has no right to settle like tender warmth deep beneath her ribs, especially not when he’s being so charmingly annoying on purpose. She has tried telling herself so many times that it’s absolutely and definitely not entirely adorable when he does that, but if she hasn’t developed an immunity to those sad puppy dog eyes over all the years they’ve known each other, she thinks it’s unlikely to happen while they’re stuck in this excuse for a fairy tale witch’s hut in the middle of Wherever on a dark and stormy night.
“So?” she asks, and he leans in closer, nudging her shoulder with his own.
“Who can we trust to keep our secrets if not each other? You can tell me. I don’t believe for a second that you never had a wild side.”
He’s still wearing that smile, and she drops her hands into her lap and turns her head, the corners of her mouth twitching as she tilts her head at him. “I didn’t say I never did anything wild.”
“Then what did you do?”
“If I told you -”
“You’d have to kill me.”
“Yeah. And then I’d be stuck out here with a broken car all on my own. So, as much as it pains me, I think I’ll have to keep you around for now.”
“Scully, that is the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to me.”
She nudges him back. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever done?”
“Nah, it’s still your turn. You haven’t actually answered my question yet.”
She rolls her eyes at him, but the smile just happens to her face, she can’t hold it in. This is the last place she wants to be and yet here she is. Because when he asked, his excitement had made her heart feel three sizes too big for her chest and she’d wanted to bask in it more than she’d wanted a hot bath and a lazy Sunday morning in bed. “I guess in that case, the craziest thing I’ve ever done is not even trying to argue my way out when I was assigned to work with you.”
“Ouch. But yes, okay. I can accept that.”
“You asked.”
“And yet you’re out here with me.”
She nods once, lifts her shoulders in a shrug. “I think that only proves my point.”
“It was my idea to come out here, so what does that say about me, then?”
She reaches over and gently pats his hand. “Mulder, I think I told you a long time ago that you’re crazy.”
“Is that why we work so well together? Do our individual kinds of crazy complement each other?”
“I clearly remember you once telling me that I’m keeping you honest. That was actually not all that long ago.”
“You were going to leave me. I would have said anything.”
She knows he’s joking, but that doesn’t stop the rush of bone-deep affection welling up from some not-so-secret place inside her. He makes it so easy, and she knows the craziest thing she has ever done is being crazy about him, but she’s fine with that. “Okay, it’s your turn now. What is the wildest thing you have ever done?”
He shrugs. “Maybe I haven’t done it yet.”
“Well, then clearly it doesn’t count.”
“But it should count.”
“But it doesn’t.”
“You don’t even know what it is.”
She knows that challenging look on his face so well, and she can’t deny that she’s curious. But she’s also not going to lose this fight. “I don’t have to. It’s irrelevant if it hasn’t happened yet. Pick something else.”
“Or I just do it now and then it will count.”
“Seriously?” She raises her eyebrows at him. “If you run out into the woods now without a torch or a gun, you’re on your own.” She wouldn’t put it past him. And she’d follow. Because he would follow her too. Danger doesn’t get one of them without the other, that’s the deal.
He shakes his head. “Oh, no. It’s much crazier than that.”
“More than getting lost in the woods at night?”
“Do you want me to just do it?”
“I don’t know what it is, Mulder, so I really can’t say.”
“Then I suppose I have no choice but to risk it.”
She nods, undeniably a little apprehensive. “Go ahead, then.”
Whatever she expected, it wasn’t him leaning in to kiss her. But when his lips meet hers, she somehow finds that she’s not all that surprised after all. It takes a fraction of a second for her mind to catch up, and then she’s kissing him back.
It’s soft, barely more than a gentle touch of lips, but it’s enough to make her feel dizzy and hot all over with five years’ worth of feelings pushing their way outwards all at once. And just like that, time ticks over from a past where they were always inevitably going to do this someday, to a present where they finally are.
She keeps her eyes closed for a second after he pulls back, trying to get her heartbeat back under control, unwilling to break the moment. When she opens her eyes, he’s still close, and she meets his searching gaze straight on, hoping he’ll get what she’s saying. If he is done pretending, then so is she.
“Crazy enough for you?” he asks softly, and she shakes her head.
“Not crazy at all.”
His smile is so hopeful. “No?”
“Not even a little bit.” She leans in and kisses him again.
He’s cupping her face between his hands and no, this is not a revelation, certainly not a confession. It’s a small thing considering its magnitude. There isn’t anything wild or crazy about it. Considering what they do every day, considering everything they’ve seen – in contrast to that, maybe falling in love with him is the most rational thing she has ever done in her life.