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The rain had stopped but the evidence of the torrential downfall that had lasted so many hours was still evident on the road. Deep puddles collecting in dips in tarmac and some stretches fully flooded. Holman had done quite a number on the Kansas climate tonight. Flights were still grounded and it was too late now to even think about making alternative plans.
They’d managed to find a motel that still had vacancies even despite the reunion, they both knew what it would be like; they were en route to the dregs of accommodation no one else wanted. ‘They’d probably stayed in worse’ he thought.
He’d had to concentrate on the road far more than he would have normally, the risk of aquaplaning so much more than it would usually have been. The radio in the rental was only semi-functioning, the speakers audibly crackling with every beat. The sound mixing in with the operatic eighties swell and lilt of purple rain in the cars interior and with the wake of the water on the road that rose and fell as they passed. The splashing and hammering sound echoing on the metal and glass of the car and the road outside.
Scully sat beside him, quiet and reflective as she often was in these moments of transition. They were beyond small talk at this point, comfortable in the silence that stretched between them. A natural economy of language had developed between them as could only do with two people so always together, they spoke in silences, subtext, and fleeting touches as much as they did with words.
Sometimes her silences were heavy and weighted, sometimes exhausted or annoyed this one was reflective. He wondered what she had said to Sheila. Whatever it was had pushed Sheila into action. She had entered the bathroom ridiculously declaring she was in love with him, with Mulder, a man she didn’t even know. She had left and run straight into Holman’s arms. Scully was logical, she was rarely sentimental or romantic. What had she said so effectively to give sheila the push she needed.
The thought crept in was it about him, he pushed it down as ridiculous, the nagging voice in his subconscious disagreed recalling his own conversation with Holman. The subtext had been all about her. He knew it, Holman knew it…
Did he really gaze at her? He better work on that.
“I love this song” she said softly breaking the silence, her gaze not moving from the window as the breaking water tried valiantly to enter the car. “Nostalgic. Reminds me of a simpler time.”
“Of course it would,” he said “eighty four, isn’t it? What were you? Twenty?”
She scoffed “about that, my roommate loved it. Heard it on loop for months”
“I on the other hand was fully in my tumultuous post Phoebe years, breaking the collective hearts of the secretarial pool at that point. You were a straight laced med student” he teased derisively. “This was the soundtrack to my car crash of a love life for years.”
“Oh really? And how do you know it’s not mine? People do play songs beyond their release date Mulder,” she teased. “You should know this, what was the last new album you brought?”
He feigned offense “Hey. I brought ‘Nevermind’; it’s culturally significant”
“Mulder that came out eight years ago.”
He chuckled “Semantics Scully.”
His gaze settled firmly on the road, but he caught it, the wry smile that betrayed her in the foggy reflection of the windshield. She was tickled. That tickled him.
They pulled into the motel carpark dubiously. It might have been worse than he feared.
“You wait here,” he said grabbing his wallet and pulling his coat around him. He braced himself against the rain that he knew would be coming up from the puddles and not down from the sky. “No sense us both getting soaked.”
She didn’t argue. It was telling, she normally would. She balked against gallantry. It was interesting. It was one of two things, the conversation with Sheila or it was just that wet and she was wearing the suede boots she loved. He hadn’t noticed earlier.
He headed for the reception and checked them both in before returning to the car with the keys on comically large wooden keyrings. He headed to the rental’s passenger door and opened it, waiting for her to step out before offering the keys. It was only then he noticed it, the wine bottle in her hand. It was a screw top and cheap, obviously terrible.
“What have you got there Agent Scully?”
“Wine.” She said simply
“I see that, contraband from the reunion I take it?” he asked teasingly, “and on duty agent Scully, now that is risky.” He tried to feign appalled indignancy but the lines at the corners of his eyes betrayed him. “Are you going to share with the rest of the class?” he asked.
She smiled looking up at him in that way she rarely did these days. It was the mischievous look of the Scully that laughed in the rain and the Scully that ate ribs with fuck me eyes. The Scully that the abduction and the cancer had tried to kill. The girl who had burned like a flame petered into the woman that lived in the embers. It was the flicker of combustion she let slip very occasionally.
It was compelling. It was the rare moment that made him stand up and listen. It spoke to something primal.
“That was the plan” she grinned “The night is still young… and so are we”
He loved these rare moments. The moments of weightlessness that slipped only very occasionally. That girl had been magnetic. Scully of today was tectonic. That girl had been the spark before the flame.
“Are you inviting me in for a nightcap Agent Scully?” he asked amused.
“I thought that was fairly obvious Agent Mulder.” She replied “Maybe it was the cheesy music and the disco ball but something feels like the night isn’t over yet. I’d like to hear that purple rain story…”
He chuckled softly. “We might need more than one bottle for that” he laughed.
She pulled another from the door well her mischievous amusement contagious.
He laughed a full belly laugh as he took one bottle from her and moved to the trunk to collect their luggage.
“Your room or mine?”
Xxx
They’d headed for their own rooms to change. It occurred to him that he was vaguely nervous. It felt like an invitation that she rarely extended; not into her presence but into her interiority. Scully was nothing if not complex, when she showed him this side of her, it meant something.
He’d spent years studying it.
It meant a reckoning.
He’d changed into sweatpants and a t-shirt and knocked on the door, feeling his heartbeat hammering in his ears in a way that was less than rational. She opened the door in her own pyjamas, a statement albeit unconscious of her emotional state. Traditional shirt style button down top, powder blue and soft inviting fabric. Paired with shorts so short they hinted at what was below. He fought it. The fleeting moment when he thought blood may rush south and trained his eyes on her face not the expanse of flesh of her legs. It wasn’t a wardrobe selection it was as everything was with his Scully, a choice, conscious and loud. Telling of something he dare not give a name.
It was Scully’s emotional architecture given voice.
He entered the room and moved to the bed trying to look casual, feeling a little self-conscious. He scooted himself up the bed and pushed his back against the headboard and put his hands behind his head.
“I’m not complaining,” he said the amusement creeping into his tone as she grabbed the two paper cups from the bathroom and poured the wine into them. “but what’s brought this on, we haven’t done this since…”
“We’ve never done this Mulder and you know it” she said derisively “That’s the point.”
He took the wine and she moved to the clock radio beside him bending to turn it on and flicking through the channels until she found something that felt right.
He sipped his wine, trying to keep his eyes trained straight ahead. With her bending at the waist even more of her thigh would be visible and it was something he’d become expert in, not ogling her.
Early on he’d done it, he’d enjoyed it, he’d sought out the opportunity to walk behind and check out her ass even. Her interest in him had been earnest and clear, that was when he knew he’d been too open. “I wouldn’t put myself on the line for anyone but you she had said.” Scully reciprocated she didn’t step first. He’d fucked up, she’d seen his interest in her, his desire for her. He thought of those times fondly, but there had come a point where he’d seen the pattern repeating itself. His pattern, the one he followed with all the women in his life. He’d realised though that he liked her, really liked her; she was brilliant, funny and they worked well together. It was Diana repeating, he knew what was coming and he wanted to keep her around and really he’d liked her enough to not want to hurt her. That was what he did, even when he didn’t intend to hurt people. It was the reason he’d started his self-imposed celibacy, before he'd even met her. He’d thrown up the walls and tried to hold her at a distance with levels of success that ebbed and flowed like the tide.
“This ok?” she asked.
He looked over quizzically, unable to stop the momentary lapse where his eyes looked down and caught the slightest glimpse of the swell of cleavage as the ‘v’ of her pyjama top lowered further by the angle. He caught himself and snapped his eyes back to Scully’s face. She had already clocked it. An amused pull at the corner of her mouth, not quite a smile, more of a smirk.
“The radio.” She continued. The sound quality was terrible, tinny and static but the station was mid eighties power ballads, cheesy but in a good way.
“Perfect.”
He replied. Scully straightened and walked to the other side of the bed. He watched her in the peripheries.
“How’s the wine?” she asked taking a sip.
“Deliciously terrible,” he replied “exactly as you’d expect.”
Scully grinned taking her first sip and let her face pucker momentarily.
“Truly disgusting,” She laughed and knocked her paper cup into his “cheers”
There was a long moment of silence he could feel the weight of her on the other side of the mattress and the heat of her body radiating at his side. It was nice. They really should do this more often.
“So, I believe you said something about breaking the collective hearts of the secretarial pool?” she teased catching his eye.
“I did, doesn’t mean it needs to be expanded upon,” he said firmly.
The look on her face was contagious, playful. Scully was rarely playful it was infectious.
“I disagree, look Mulder you brought it up. You gave me an in don’t think I’m not going to take it. Annie Markham?”
His stomach filled with lead and he rubbed his face with his hands. “What about her?” he asked trying to keep the amusement out of his tone.
“She’s one of those hearts isn’t she?” she asked grinning.
“Maybe” he said. An unfamiliar pull in his stomach unsure if he was enjoying this or not.
“Definitely, she hates you,”
He nodded “With pretty good reason, I was an ass,”
“Is that why we avoid the fourth floor?” she asked.
“One of the reasons.” He said firmly.
She didn’t expand she waited, she sipped and she watched. She knew he would elaborate when he was ready. She knew him inside out. What had started in the car was rare but predictable. When the walls went down and the mood allowed, the openness was inevitable, as it would always be with people so always together.
“God, I was an asshole for a while Scully,”
“Everyone’s an asshole in their early twenties Mulder,”
“Not you.” He said firmly
“Especially me,” she assured “You show me yours I’ll show you mine.”
He chuckled into his wine, before throwing back the rest and holding out the cup for a refill.
“It was after Phoebe; I was wrecked by her. Our relationship was long for that age, three years of college, on-off in the worst way. Cyclical destruction. Cheating, mostly on her part, sometimes on mine, jealousy, anger, vicious arguments, one that turned physical. It was a mess. Look this started as a light thing, a bit of fun. This isn’t a fun story. You sure you want to hear this? I don’t want to kill the buzz.”
Her face faltered, it hadn’t really been what she’d been intending but the opportunity to learn about the backstory that only existed in subtext didn’t present itself often.
“Hey look, my Phoebe is far from light either. My Phoebe wrecked other people, things and not just me,” she reassured “I mean it Mulder everyone’s got a messy history. I know yours, from other people. I know it from gossip and angry stares from women I don’t know in elevators. I’d like to hear it from you.”
“Who’s giving us angry stares?” he said amused.
“You want me to write you the full list? We might be here a while.” Scully chuckled reaching for the bottle to top them both up.
“Shit.” he said simply.
The cup lifted to her lips she inhaled deeply, the tang of the wine hitting her nostrils and providing sensory grounding. At that moment the lights flickered and then went out altogether. The radio fell silent and the darkness fell like a blanket over them both.
“Holmans rains fucked the shitty wiring I bet,” he said. He opened the bedside table and retrieved the two emergency candles and matches he’d noticed earlier in his own room. This obviously happened a lot, unsurprising, this was the dregs. As he checked in the manager had asked if he wanted to pay the night rate or by the hour, he’d thought better of sharing that information with Scully.
He lit the candles and couldn’t help but notice the way the dim light danced on her face. Soft; she rarely seemed soft these days. The quest had hardened her. Scully was astonishing but he missed that girl sometimes, open and passionately gentle as she had been. He loved these glimpses. They hinted that she was still in there somewhere.
The silence stretched. It was palpable, comfortable and warm. He could sit forever in silence next to her and consider it a life well spent.
“Phoebe got pregnant,” it bubbled out of him almost as if of it’s own accord. “We were twenty-one. She said it was mine, honestly I’m not so sure. There was always someone else. I was shit scared and out of my depth. I’d reached the point where I knew we were done and done for good and I was going to end it.” He couldn’t look at her as he said it, knowing the contentious issue fertility was. Still not sure this was wise. It occurred to him all of a sudden; he wanted to tell her. He’d never told anyone.
“Then she told me and I couldn’t leave. I felt trapped but I wanted to do the right thing. It took weeks to decide. It was her choice. I was relieved. We tried for a few more months after but it had been over before the pregnancy even happened.”
He sipped his wine and exhaled a breath he didn’t know he was holding. “I’ve never told anyone that.”
She reached over and squeezed his hand and held it for a beat longer than they should have.
“Thank you for telling me,” Scully said her voice barely a whisper.
“Phoebe was ok, confident in the decision and fairly unaffected. It wrecked me.”
She bumped his bicep with her shoulder “Of course it did; She was a girl who wanted a mistake undone. Mulder your entire life is centred on rebuilding family connections you lost. You’re a Psychologist you know this.”
He nodded slowly considering it. It provided a clarity that he had never had the distance for.
“When I started at the FBI I rose in VCS quickly. Monty props made me the bright new thing. I never looked for opportunities with women; they just presented themselves. All from work- they had to be, I was never anywhere else. I was hurt and damaged by what had happened and I was selfish. I didn’t want anything serious, but I think the way I am implies more than I say sometimes. I ran through people, I broke hearts. I thought I was clear I wasn’t looking for more than sex and a brief companionship. I was pretty pissed off by it and I wasn’t always kind after. Apparently I wasn’t as clear as I thought because there’s a string of women at the bureau who would tell you otherwise.”
She absorbed it. She had known it for years. Scully was fairly certain she could list the string by name.
“I think if you spoke to most of the other young agents of that time their histories would be similar. The FBI was and is an old boys club, that story is far from unique to you.”
He turned to her and met her eyes. “I think the volume might be,” he chuckled.
She laughed “Its that face,” she tilted her head the ghost of a flirtation behind her eyes “that face gives you more opportunity than most I imagine,”
He couldn’t help the wry smile that split his face. “Are you implying it’s remotely plausible someone might think I’m hot Agent Scully.”
She didn’t answer in words, she didn’t need to. The subtext did it for her.
“I think you promised to show me yours,” he reminded.
“Which one?” she asked laughing “There’s a few.”
He laughed. “Pick one,”
“One was married, that was the messiest.”
He looked at her, trying to contain the shock. He held her on a pedestal, he knew he tended to idealise her in his mind, he knew she fought against it. He had to remind himself she wasn’t perfect, she was human too. He waited.
“He was my attending. Daniel. Brilliant ER specialist, he’d written papers and built something so impressive at work. I was twenty-two he was well in his forties. Now I recognise the power imbalance. I wanted him but I was bulldozed by him. I could never meet him where he was because I wasn’t emotionally mature enough to get there at the time. It was intense and forbidden; honestly at the beginning I think I got off on that, over time it was crushing being the dirty little secret.” There was a momentary crack in her tone, not a break, a micro beat. No one but him would have caught it. This was a wound that wasn’t fully healed. He did what he always did he gave her the space to get there herself.
“He kept telling me he would leave but it wasn’t the time, then plans would be made and something would happen. Soon but not now… that’s all I heard for almost two years and I let myself believe it every time. I was an idiot.”
“You were young,” he said softly
“I should have known better. I got pregnant, I thought it would make him leave. I miscarried at ten weeks. He drove me to another hospitals ER and dropped me off. Maggie, his daughter had a piano recital and he needed to pick up his wife. I haemorrhaged and needed a transfusion. I stayed overnight and got a cab home in the morning. He left me a cheque for my deductibles in my pigeon hole at work. It wasn’t support. He wanted to buy my silence.”
Mulder didn’t know what to say. He wanted to say a lot, but he didn’t think it would be welcome. What a fucking prick.
“It’s why I left medicine,” she admitted “I needed a new life, I did a pathology rotation and loved it and changed my specialism. The rest is history; it brought me here. I wouldn’t change a day.”
They sat in the candlelight for a long time, it echoes around in his brain. ‘He wanted to buy my silence’
“You’re something else Scully, you do know that don’t you?” the admiration creeping into his tone. “You are so unbelievably strong. I don’t know how you manage to be so morally true to yourself after everything.”
She looked at him and said nothing. They never did this. Never said these things.
“I don’t know what to say.” She said looking away, it was a tell. He knew what it meant, the veil between them was slipping, a nerve had been touched and the embers of potential between them had been stoked. He knew it because he knew her. He knew it because he felt it too. He knew they wouldn’t act on it because they were both too afraid to fan the flames. The moment extended long and heavy, electrically charged.
He wanted to act, to say the thing that lived on the tip of his tongue. His profilers mind ran through the potential outcomes, trying to organise an action. Trying to pluck up the courage, to act now this would be a leap not a tentative step. Was he ready for that? He really wasn’t sure.
The light sputtered and the radio sprang back into life, the middle bridge of purple rain filling the room.
“What are the chances?” she chuckled pointing to the radio.
“Does Holman control airways too?” he replied “must be an x-file”
She turned her head and looked at him for a long beat the ghost of a smile on her lips. She knew, he knew she did; she understood the internal monologue the radio had disturbed. He wondered if she’d had one too. He smiled back at her… that face. That face. The tension was escalating so he did what he always did.
“What was your first time like Scully?” his eyes crinkled at the corners mischievous and knowing he was pushing it.
She laughed a full belly laugh.
“No chance,” she said.
“Come on Scully it will be fun. I’ll show you mine and all that,” she shook her head derisively. “Emma Wilson, my best friends older sister. Years of pining and earnest wooing someone who wasn’t interested. I wore her down. I was convinced I was head over heels in love with her, really I loved being in love. In the dark on the Aquinnah cliffs, the sound of the waves crashing on the beach below. It was pretty special. It would have been perfect if I’d had any idea what I was doing.”
She laughed “wow, ever the romantic.”
“Once upon a time, later on it was quickies in stationary cupboards” he laughed.
“Which cupboards?”
He looked at her incredulously, she was feigning deadpan with a tug at her eyes that gave her a way. Scully was funny, he forgot sometimes. The heaviness of their day to day didn’t invite it often.
“Well you have me beat there, Mine was awful.”
He waited, he smiled. He knew the patience would pay off.
“After the Sadie Hawkins Dance, in the back of Bills car. Marcus. Too small, too cramped, both drunk, both raised catholic at catholic high schools with not a clue between us. Fumbling, quick and regrettable! Wasn’t repeated for years. I didn’t see the point”
He laughed out loud and she smiled. “I can only imagine what that did to that poor boy’s ego.”
“She laughed not a lot. He thought it was great.”
“That tells me everything about who that man is now Scully, lucky escape.”
She smiled.
She poured the last of the wine into their cups and smacked the bottom of the bottle like it was reluctant ketchup. He smiled and raised the cup to his lips, his body faintly tingly, warm in that almost intoxicated, mostly a buzz kind of way. It occurred to him that he hadn’t had this much fun in years. Why didn’t they do this?
He knew the answer because of the consequences, because of where it would inevitably lead.
To more.
They weren’t there yet. Maybe they never would be.
“This was nice Scully,” he said simply.
“It was.”
He looked at her a long moment and his fingers laying on the mattress beside hers gravitated to hers as if of their own accord drawn to her mangnetic pull. He didn’t take her hand, that would be too bold. His pinky reached for her and brushed the cool skin of hers, and rubbed affectionately. The radio broke into the gentle swell of wonderful tonight, and it occurred to him that this moment wasn’t just nice. It was perfect. He felt suddenly choked. She didn’t respond to his touch except to move her hand just a fraction closer. She was inviting without micro-gestures.
They drank the last of the wine in silence listening to the radio. The subtext more clear and open that it ever had been.
It was too perfect to push this today, he wanted to catalogue this for those days things weren’t so light. Something to pull out in those darkest of days. It was time to go, he didn’t want to but it was the only right outcome tonight.
“I better go,” he said breaking the contact and feeling the cool air hitting his skin. His flesh called to her. “We’ve got an early flight”
She pushed herself up to open the door, he let her walk ahead. He did the thing he never did, let himself look at the strikingly long alabaster legs for someone so short, at her ass and the way she held herself.
He pursed his lips and blew out a silent breath in an exaggerated 'O' and looked away. That was another to file away for later.
He paused briefly at the door.
“If you ever get the compulsion to break federal law acquire contraband booze again make sure you act on it Scully,” she smiled “I’ll help you destroy the evidence.”
“Night,” she said and watched him walk to his own room before shutting the door.
As he unlocked his own room and walked into the heavy darkness. He acknowledged it, allowing himself to give it a name in a way he never did.
It was real, it was reciprocal and it was coming.