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Scully stood, trying to remain patient as the rain battered her umbrella. She wasn’t nervous. It wouldn’t make sense to be nervous. She hadn’t seen Monica in nearly fifteen years, but there had been the occasional e-mail. X-Files related, at first, although as time went on, the X-Files became only an opener. A line or two about a case, followed paragraphs on the mundane moments of their lives. Besides Mulder, Monica was her oldest friend. So there was no need to be nervous.
She checked her watch again, not surprised Monica was late. But even as she thought it, she looked up to see Monica walking towards her, her face breaking out into a wide smile as they caught each other’s eye. Scully couldn’t help but to return the smile and suddenly, she was nervous.
They hugged an awkward one arm hug, umbrellas catching together as Reyes gave Scully’s cheek a light kiss. Scully wasn’t sure if her cheek burned at the unfamiliar feeling of intimacy, or because of who it was that kissed her. “It’s good to see you, Dana,” Monica said as she drew away. She had changed a bit over the years, was leaner than she used to be, but her voice was the same - unnervingly earnest. Scully had forgotten. She was so used to self-deprecation and quick wit; Reyes’ straightforwardness was something she had always found equally bewildering and refreshing. Monica’s eyes traced over Scully’s face. “You look great.”
“You too,” Scully said. The response was automatic, but she meant it. She looked good, she always had, but more than that, it was good to see her.
They briefly caught up - Reyes’ ride was fine, Scully was staying at a hotel not too far away - before turning their talk to the case. Scully notice Reyes instinctively looked over her shoulder as they talked. Old habits. Scully could believe a lot of things, but not that anyone had followed two middle aged women to talk in the rain about conspiracies that had ended long ago. But Scully was grateful for the conversation. Monica, as always, brought a unique perspective to the case, and over the years had developed some contacts that were sure to help them out.
The conversation about the case slowed down, and even though the rain remain steady, Scully didn’t want to leave. She didn’t want to go back to her drab and damp hotel room alone. And so when Monica asked her if she wanted to grab a drink, she agreed without hesitation. She gave directions to the one bar in town, and as they splashed back to their own respective cars, Scully wished that the rest of her life could be this easy.
At the bar, they settled into a back booth, Scully easily ignoring the stares of the crowd. She was used to being an outsider, the suit in the middle of cornfields. She had learned to separate the curious from the dangerous, and here, everyone was just curious. Meanwhile, Monica met the stares with a smile. They settled into a booth in the darkest corner of the bar. The bartender came over immediately after they were seated - a girl with bleached hair and dark eyeliner who barely looked old enough to drink what she served. She made Scully feel old - but a lot of things did that these days.
Both women ordered whiskeys. The past few days - hell, the past few months - had Scully eschewing wine for liquor more often than she cared to dwell on. Usually she drank her liquor alone, relishing the burn and the clouded head that made sleep come easier. But with Monica sitting across from her, the whiskey warmed more than burned and, as one drink turned into two, the cloudiness felt more freeing than it ever had.
Their conversation weaved from the current case to past ones to brief interludes about Monica’s life. The conversation and the whiskey relaxed Scully in a way she wasn’t used to. Her most common companions these days were dead bodies, who weren’t much for telling amusing anecdotes about conversations heard through wiretap. And Mulder, of course. But the bodies were more amusing than him, these days.
As the bartender brought them a third drink without them even having ordered it, Reyes let a natural pause in the conversation draw out until Scully met her gaze head on. “How is he?” she asked, and there was no point in playing dumb.
“He’s...Mulder,” she said on a sigh, knowing that years ago that sigh might have been accompanied by a smile. Remembering that barely tugged at her heart anymore.
Reyes took a thoughtful sip of her drink. “Are the two of you…?” she trailed off, her hand waving in the air. In another person the unfinished sentence might have been a sign of embarrassment - but coming from Monica, Scully felt it was almost an homage, an acknowledgment that there wasn’t a single word that could have summed up what the two of them had been.
Scully just shook her head. But Monica remained silent across the table, elbows on the table, body leaning forward, eyes searching. She wouldn’t ask for more details. But she effortlessly created space for Scully to talk, and for once, Scully felt as though the unasked questions weren’t about wanting to gossip, but instead stemmed from concern.
“Mulder can’t move on,” she said after another moment. “He won’t let his life be anything beyond conspiracies and his quest. I don’t know if he even knows what the quest is for at this point.”
“And you want your life to be something else,” Reyes suggested knowingly.
“Yes.” In her less charitable moments, she thought that Mulder had truly become Spooky - someone that couldn’t be taken seriously, who was too caught up in the truth he couldn’t see what the point of the quest was. What good was knowing something if nobody would listen? If nothing could change? Mulder’s dedication to the truth and to righteousness had once been what drew her to him. Now it was simply exhausting.
“But you’re here,” Reyes said with a smile. “Back on the case.”
Scully had tried to figure out how she ended up here as well. What made this time different. If it was actually different, or if she had just become so accustomed to coming when he called that she hadn’t known how to say no. “This is...bigger than us,” she said finally. “I would have to do this, even if he hadn’t asked me to. If I had gotten that e-mail instead of him...I would have had to see where it led.” Scully hadn’t been sure, but as she talked, she became more convinced that it was true.
“This time it’s personal,” Reyes said, and Scully couldn’t help but to return her smile. She hadn’t been able to joke about these things in so long. Scully found her chest squeeze, missing someone who was right there with her. She missed the ease of being with Monica. Monica had been there, had protected her, when she was at her most vulnerable. It was never hard to talk with her. Scully hadn’t realized before that she’d been holding her breath. Hadn’t realized that even though she’d left Mulder, the silence and solemnity that had defined the past years were still status quo. Her friendship with Monica had been brief, even as it continued over the years. She barely had time to figure out that she liked the other woman before she had to flee, trusting Monica to take care of herself as well as she had taken care of Scully. She had a sudden desire to thank Monica, for all that she had done years ago, for still being someone Scully could trust to show up after a phone call. But the gratitude got stuck in her throat and was interrupted by the bartender stopping by the table. She switched her order to beer, the lump in her throat a reminder to keep it in check.
Reyes, likely sensing Scully’s reverie immediately launched into a story about a trial where she was an expert witness. Scully figured that cases against psychologists who convinced children their parents were Satanists wasn’t exactly a typical happy hour story, but she couldn’t help but become engaged. Nor could she help but to push back when talk of Satanic rituals turned to dissociative identity disorder, or from rolling her eyes as Monica proved she was as eager as ever to believe.
It wasn’t until Reyes nearly knocked over an empty beer glass that Scully realized just how long they had been sitting in their booth, and just how many drinks each of them had had. “Are you going to be able to drive?” she asked, after Reyes had straightened the glass.
Monica paused, her head tilted, a faint smile on her lips. “No,” she admitted after a moment. “Are you?”
It had been a long time since Scully had made the mistake of drinking too much when she needed to drive. “No,” she replied with a hint of embarrassment. “But my motel is just down the road.”
It was actually a mile down the road. Although that wasn’t too far back in D.C., Scully wasn’t looking forward to the walk in the the dark and in heels.
“I can walk with you? Get a room there.” Monica phrased it as if it were a request, but Scully couldn’t see how there was any other option. She couldn’t tell if it was the alcohol or her genuine affection for the other woman that was making her so glad to not have to make the walk by herself. To have the chance to spend more time with Monica and to see her off in the morning.
There seemed to be no reason to linger now that the night’s plans had been decided, and their conversation slowed comfortably as they finished the drinks in front of them and paid the bill. Scully paid for it over Monica’s objections - it was because of her that Monica was even in this town, and while it wasn’t entirely her fault that she was stuck there overnight, she couldn’t help but feel responsible. She was too used to being the practical one.
The walk was dreary. The rain had lifted, but the air remained damp, mist dancing in and out of the few streetlights along the way. The sidewalk was narrow full of cracks - Scully nearly fell once, but was steadied by Monica’s hand under her elbow. They walked close, shoulders brushing, and Scully just managed to stop herself from reaching reflexively to her gun each time she heard a rustle behind them.
When they reached the motel, they stood for a moment, shoulders still touching, to take in the neon NO that was now lit before the word vacancy.
“It wasn’t like that this morning,” Scully said dumbly, glancing over at Monica’s face illuminated by the fluorescent light.
Monica turned to face her as well, and they simply stood there for a moment, Scully unable to form a thought for a moment as she took in Monica’s eyes, the same shade of brown as the whiskey they had been drinking. It must have been the whiskey that made it take so long for her to break their gaze and state the obvious. “You can stay with me.”
She started the walk to her room, Monica trailing slightly behind. “Dana, I can go talk to the manager, see if maybe he turned the sign on by mistake or if he can get me a cab to another hotel.”
“There’s no hotel for thirty miles,” Scully said as she unlocked the door. “It’s fine, Monica.”
She flipped on the light and walked determinedly into the room. Monica trailed behind her, and Scully found herself purposefully ignoring the queen size single bed, a difficult feat as it took up almost the entirety of the small, dingy room.
"Offer you a drink?" she said, gesturing to the nearly full bottle of whiskey that sat on the desk in the corner.
"Better not," Reyes replied with a slight grimace.
Scully didn't say anything, and the silence lingered. Scully wasn't sure what came next in this situation. She had spent countless evenings alone in hotel rooms with Mulder, either going over a case or just unwinding after a day. It had never been awkward. But she suddenly found herself adrift, unable to navigate an evening in a motel room with a friend.
Luckily, Monica only allowed the awkwardness to linger for a moment before realizing Scully wasn't equipped to defuse the tension.
"I'm pretty beat," she said, her voice sounding anything but. "I'll go see if the manager has a cot for me?"
Scully wondered if this was a way to give her a moment to collect herself; she was grateful for it. As Monica went to speak with the manager, Scully changed into her pajamas, taking a clean set out for Monica. The image of Monica in her pajamas, shorts that would inevitably be shorter on the taller woman’s frame, flashed through her mind before she pushed it out and left them on the bed.
She had just finished brushing her teeth and was brushing out her hair when Monica knocked to be let in. She wasn't sure if she was imagining Monica's eyes dipping down to take in the skin left exposed by the tank top she wore, but the moment was gone before she could decipher it.
"He didn't have a cot," Monica said, a bit unnecessarily as she was carrying linens but no cot. "I got these though, so I can just set up on the floor."
"Don't be ridiculous," Scully said. "The bed is big enough for the two of us." Monica's eyes flashed slightly, with something Scully couldn't quite place. "If that's OK with you," she added a bit more hesitantly
"Sure," Reyes said easily. "I just feel bad that I'm putting you out. I should know my limits better."
"It happens," Scully assured her. She gestured to the neatly folded pajamas. "I have these for you. No spare toothbrush -"
"Oh, I have one in my purse," Reyes said brightly. "Old habits, you know? I can't remember the last time I've needed it, but I just got so used to needing to be ready to go at a moment’s notice."
Scully felt another pang of regret. She had never stopped needing those necessities on her, had never stopped keeping an overnight bag in the trunk, a spare phone charger and toothbrush in her purse. Even at quietest moments with Mulder, there was always the chance of having to jump up and go.
Monica must have seen the regret in Scully’s eyes. She smiled softly, letting her hand gently brush Scully's bare upper arm as she walked by to the bathroom. She didn't say anything, but the warmth of the caress was enough. Scully got into bed, carefully keeping herself to one side. She looked at her phone critically. Mulder hadn't called or texted, but she was sure that he would be expecting an update.
"Met with Monica. She has some contacts that may be helpful - will follow up and let you know."
After she sent the text she turned her phone off, turned purposefully away from her phone to lay on her back. She didn't want to deal with Mulder, his questions and demands. She wished she had the fortitude to refuse to check in, but she wasn’t there yet. Wasn’t beyond wanting to ease Mulder’s path as much as possible.
Monica turned off the lights on her way to bed, crawled in with a whisper of “sweet dreams” and “see you in the morning.” Although Scully knew she should be tired, knew that she had another long day ahead of her, it was taking enormous strength for her to keep her eyes closed. She lay still, thumbs idly brushing the soft silk of the top covering her abdomen. She could feel Monica beside her, the other woman lying just as still but on her stomach. It was excruciating. Scully was used to tossing and turning to fall asleep. When she shared a bed with Mulder, an experience that was feeling further and further away every moment she lay next to Monica, she has often accidentally clocked him with a fist or an elbow as she tried to find sleep.
As though she had sensed Scully’s unease, which, Scully thought wryly, she probably had, Monica flipped over to her side, propping her head up on her hand and locking her gaze onto Scully.
"You're not sleeping," she said, and although she had only stated the obvious, Scully couldn't help but to smile.
"Neither are you," she pointed out.
The hand that Monica wasn't using to prop her head up rose from the bed for a millisecond, as though it were going to reach out, but then fell. "Are you worried?" Monica asked,
It was a fair question. This case had left Scully had plenty to be worried about. But somehow those real life events seemed to have taken the back burner to the simple connection she had rekindled with Monica. The ease of having a friend. A partner on a case who lived up to the meaning of the word.
And maybe it was the alcohol still in her system, or the late hour, or simply loneliness, that encouraged Scully to tell the truth.
"I'm not. I know I should be, but I actually was just thinking..thinking that it's been a long time since I've had a night like this." She kept her gaze on the ceiling, the words coming easier when she didn’t meet Monica’s gaze.
"Too drunk to get home?"
"A night where I didn't have to worry. Where I wasn't worried about government shadowmen or aliens or - " she cut herself off.
"Mulder." Reyes supplied.
Scully nodded, before realizing that Monica probably couldn't see her. She kept her gaze toward the ceiling as she picked carefully for the right words.
"Not just him. Or not just for his safety. It’s worrying for his state of mind. Trying to determine if what he was chasing was real. Or if he was just so used to chasing he didn't know how to stop. This - this case. It's different. This is real in a way so many of them weren't. For so many years, the X-Files were his life. And mine. It was more than a job, but it was still a job. We still took home paychecks and accrued vacation days we never used. And that grounded me, and maybe that even grounded him, But he has let himself become...You didn't know Max."
Reyes took a moment to adjust to the sudden unexplained departure in Scully's speech. "No, I don't believe I did," she said slowly after a moment.
"He was - well, he was an X-File. We met him, investigated him, several times. He was - he claimed he was - a multiple abductee."
"What happened to him?"
"He died," Scully said simply, although of course Max and his death were anything but simple. "I was thinking about him a lot...before things ended. Abductions had become Max's life. He lived in a trailer, we were there several times. Mulder - even back then, I knew that he understood Max. He felt at home in that trailer - covered in posters and VHS tapes and just all these physical manifestations of his obsession. At the time, it reminded me of Mulder's office. But as the years went on..." Scully trailed off. She remembered how the office had moved into his home. Into their home. At first, it had been contained to the room designated as their home office. Then old files and newspaper clippings would sometimes find themselves on Mulder's nightstand. When the files had started piling up on the end table in the living room, she had finally said something. But by then, she knew she was fighting a losing battle. She tried yelling, cleaning up on her own - everything to keep the home a home and not just the landscape of Mulder's mind.
She had failed, of course. Over the years she thought she had become adept at keeping Mulder in line. But his first, and truest, love would always be the undefinable truth. She had thought that she could accept it. She had been wrong.
She realized she had been silent for longer than was comfortable. She turned her gaze, caught Monica looking at her, eyes wide with sympathy.
"Sorry," Scully said. "I don't even know why I'm getting into all of this."
"I asked," Monica said. She hadn't, not really, but Scully was grateful to be able to keep her pride. She smiled, and Monica did reach her other hand up then, reached across the bed to gently tuck back a length of hair that was obscuring Scully's face.
She let her hand linger for a moment, precariously propped on one arm, the other holding Scully's face gently. Scully could feel a blush rising. She wasn't sure what the proper move here was. Had never found herself in this situation, didn't know what the protocol was.
"Well, thank you. For letting me talk about it."
Monica's hand dropped. "You can talk about anything with me, Dana," and there was that earnestness again.
Scully knew that it was true. But also knew - she was done talking about Mulder. At least for tonight, at least with Monica. She knew that there was probably value in working through all the ways their relationships had fallen apart. But she had spent so much time in her own head doing just that. She regretted taking up space in Monica’s with it.
Monica shifted so that she mirrored Scully’s position, and Scully was suddenly aware of how...intimate this all was. Their gaze held for a moment, and if Monica was bothered by the intimacy, she showed no sign of it. Scully gave into the urge to search Monica's eyes, to try to see what thoughts were bouncing around in her brain. She felt as though Monica was trying to see if Scully was upset about Mulder, but Mulder had, thankfully, been pushed out of her mind by the other woman's gaze.
Her eyes dropped to Monica's lips, the faint smile lines that surrounded them. Wrinkles that hadn't been there the last time they'd worked together, but that Scully appreciated. Appreciated that Monica had aged with a smile on her face, that she had led the kind of life that led to those lines. Scully hadn't examined her own face closely for some time - she knew that her wrinkles were more likely to be from a furrowed brow than anything else.
She was so lost in her thoughts, she nearly gasped when she unexpectedly felt Monica's hand on her bare arm. "Where'd you go?" she asked, her mouth curving up slightly to accent the lines Scully had just been noticing.
"Where were you?" Scully said instead. Monica's smile faded only briefly at her non-answer, but Scully was sick of talking, guilty of the way she'd taken advantage of Monica's willingness to take on Scully’s worries and fears without anything in return.
"Just thinking about how different our lives have been," Monica said, and somehow Scully wasn't surprised that their thoughts had been so lined up. She’d seen too many strange things to second guess this seemingly natural connection.
“Do you regret any of it?” Scully asked.
“No,” Monica replied. “I mean, John -” and Scully suddenly felt unbearably guilty that she had asked a question that made Monica’s look so sad. “But that wasn’t anyone’s fault,” she said, with a firmness that spoke to how often Monica had had to tell herself that. “But I have a good life. A lonely life, sometimes. But a good one.”
A good life. Scully wasn’t even sure what that meant anymore, only that she wanted it. Wanted to make up for years of lost time, marching towards a goal that was always just over the horizon. She wanted to wander. Wanted to take her eyes off the finish line and take in the scenery that was all around her.
The thought, combined with Monica’s face, a smile lingering on her lips just across the bed, hit Scully like a punch in the gut. A punch that quickly turned warm and heavy as Monica closed the short distance between them and kissed Scully gently on the lips.
It barely lasted a moment, but Scully was sure she had no breath left in her lungs as Monica pulled away. She wasn’t sure when her eyes had closed, but she kept them that way as Monica lingered a hair’s breath from her face.
“That was good too,” Monica said, and Scully’s eyes fluttered open as she tried to trace Monica’s words back to their conversation. She had lost track of what they had been saying, had lost track of everything but Monica’s lips on her, near her. It wasn’t that she hadn’t considered this moment before. It was just that Monica had always been in her life when it was in turmoil. Pregnant, Mulder dying or dead or missing. If it had crossed her mind, she had immediately rejected the idea. She had assumed her desire came from a need for comfort, that she was looking for an easy way to soothe her pain.
And while she could still use the comfort, her pain was duller than it used to be. Pain sat in the back of her mind, a companion she didn’t particularly relish but had grown comfortable with. And Monica was here, a breath away, her face asking a question that didn’t need words. And so Scully stopped thinking - stopped thinking about the different paths that had led them both to this moment, what the would do the next day, and simply gave in. She slid a hand behind Monica’s neck, allowed her fingers to curl up into her hair, tugged her forward until their lips met again.
Tomorrow she would worry about the repercussions. Tomorrow she would worry about the case, Mulder, what this meant. But for tonight, everything slipped from her mind but the delicious pull in her chest and Monica’s body shifting to cover hers.