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Friday morning was, in Mulder’s opinion, the third best day of the week, just behind Sunday, both trailing numero uno, the star of the week: Saturday. He didn’t always feel that way. Saturday was like any other day except he could show up at the basement in business casual attire. Not lately, though. Lately, he had better things to do.
“Morning, Scully,” he said, handing her the non-fat mocha latte he picked up at the coffee shop across the street before he came in.
“Quite a spring in your step this morning,” she answered, taking the proffered coffee and lifting the lid to blow on the steam.
“It’s Friday.” He smiled at her and put a hand on her hip as he brushed by.
“About that.”
He turned, trying not to let his face betray the disappointment he knew he was about to feel. Scully dropped her eyes and licked the side of her upper lip as she tucked her hair back behind her ear.
“I’ve been a little neglectful of some things these past few weeks,” she said.
“What kind of things?”
“Normal, everyday sort of things. Errands. Laundry. Boring household things that...well…”
“I see.”
“I’m afraid I won’t get any of it done if I’m...distracted.”
“I see.”
She closed her eyes and took a calming breath. “I should’ve mentioned it sooner, I just…”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Are you sure?”
He reached up and tucked her slipshod hair back over her ear that had managed to fall free while she was speaking. “Don’t worry about it,” he said again, and his eyes drifted to her mouth as she bit her lip. He moved his hand down so that his fingers lightly traced her cheek and then brushed his thumb against her lower lip to pull it free from her teeth.
“Skinner sent down a checklist for the upcoming file audit,” he said, putting on his best professional voice and taking a few steps back from her.
“I’ll take half, you take the other?”
“Must’ve read my mind.”
And so, the monotonous task of file review began and Mulder made valiant effort not to let his disappointment show. The last thing he wanted was for Scully to feel guilty about needing some time to herself. They’d spent the last four weekends together, exploring a developing intimacy that was new and fresh and still in the ‘can’t keep our hands off each other’ phase. Since weeknights were off limits and out of town also meant on the clock, he’d come to rely on weekends in such a short amount of time.
By early afternoon, Mulder was burned out, and with nothing to look forward to at the end of the day, it made the task even more dull. His mind wandered to last Friday in Scully’s kitchen. And the previous Sunday on his couch. And the Saturday before that on her living room floor. And that first night in his bed.
“Mulder?” Scully asked.
“Yeah?” he answered.
“Where were you? I called your name three times.”
“Just thinking.”
“I’ve got one file left, where are you at?”
“Oh…” He flipped through the stack of files he had been half-heartedly reviewing. “Just a couple. Why don’t you leave me yours and you can cut out early.”
“Of course not.”
“Go on,” he said, reaching across the desk to tug on the file in her hand. “You’ve got better things to do.”
Scully reluctantly relinquished the file in her hand and went about slowly packing up her things. Mulder pretended to work on the rest of his files and also pretended not to notice as she kept sneaking glances at him. Blazer buttoned and attache in hand she hesitated in front his desk and then walked around to his side and leaned against the edge. He looked up at her and raised his brows.
“I forgot something,” she said, shuffling papers around on his desk until she found a blank Post-It. Come home with me , she wrote.
He pushed her hand away and added a response. Don’t want to distract you .
I changed my mind .
Can’t resist me even for a weekend?
Scully quirked her brow and shifted her legs so that her knee brushed against his thigh. She flexed her foot, bringing her heel up out of her shoe so that her calf rubbed his pant leg.
“No fair,” Mulder whispered.
“Have a good night,” she said, pushing away from the desk and heading to the door.
“See you Monday.”
“Mmhm.” Her fingers fluttered a wave as she disappeared.
He couldn’t stay away if he tried. His overnight bag was already in the car. With Scully to look forward to again, it gave him the boost he needed to finish the file review as soon as possible. Twenty minutes after Scully left, he was finished and he shut down his computer and grabbed his jacket.
“What took you so long,” Scully greeted, pulling him through the door even before he finished knocking.
He bent and wrapped his arms around her lower back and she linked her hands behind his neck, rising on tiptoes to bring their mouths together. He didn’t know it then, but he was only a few short minutes away from adding ‘against her door’ to his memory bank.
The rest of the night was spent much like the last four Friday nights together. They ordered dinner, watched a movie, fooled around on the couch, played a game of checkers, fooled around in front of the fireplace, and then finally went to bed where all that fooling around turned serious.
Mulder woke first, as he usually did, and he watched Scully sleep until he began to miss her and started drawing pictures on her back with his index finger to slowly wake her up. He whispered a good morning and then kissed her shoulder blade.
“I was thinking,” he said, lips grazing the inside of her neck and the back of her ear. She made a noise of acknowledgment and shrugged his tickling, stubbled chin away from her shoulder. “Wouldn’t those boring household things you have to do be more fun if I helped?”
She smiled a little but didn’t agree. He moved over her hips and smoothed her hair up to expose the back of her neck and proceeded to kiss his way down her spine. He traced the outline of her tattoo with his nose and pressed his thumbs into the dimples above her tailbone. She shifted her hips and sighed.
He moved up to lie beside her and rolled her towards him so her back was pressed to his chest. Her head was pillowed on his arm and she rotated her neck just enough to rub her face against the underside of his chin. He massaged one of her breasts and when she sighed contentedly, he moved his hand down her abdomen and between her legs.
“Is this okay?” he asked, pulling her thigh back so her leg was over his.
“Mmhm.”
Fifteen minutes later, legs aquiver, Scully rolled out of bed with a sleepy smile on her face. Mulder stretched and waited for her to come out of the bathroom before he sat up and reclined against her headboard. He got to fleetingly appreciate her naked body as she crossed the room to pick up her silk robe that had ended up puddled on the floor by the chair last night. He was sad when she slipped it on.
“What do we have to do today?” he asked.
“Laundry, for one thing,” she answered, giving a pointed look at the bed as she gathered the rest of the clothes that had been strewn about in their haste.
He gave her a smug grin. “What else?”
“My grocery list keeps growing. I have dry cleaning to pick up. I haven’t dusted in god knows how long. The bathroom needs to be cleaned. I have some bills to pay, which reminds me I should probably go to the bank.”
“I have a plan.”
“Of course you do.”
“I’ll take you to breakfast at that cafe you like. It’s across the street from the bank, isn’t it?”
She nodded.
“Then we’ll go to the bank,” he said. “And I’ll drop you back here and I’ll go get your dry cleaning and you can give me your grocery list.”
“Are you going to go to mass for me tomorrow too?”
“No, but I’ll stay here and keep the bed warm until you get back.”
“All right. Your plan actually sounds...efficient.”
Mulder climbed out of bed and tossed a pillow at her which she caught with an oof and then shoved it back at him. “Don’t act so surprised,” he said. “I can be extremely efficient with the right incentive.”
“Where’s the incentive?”
“ You’re the incentive.”
They showered together, not the most efficient use of time as Mulder kept ‘accidentally’ dropping the soap, but it didn’t set the day back too much. Scully snagged a table by the front window at the cafe and she watched people stroll by, sipping her coffee and nibbling her muffin while Mulder read the paper and drank his own coffee. He scratched at the belt loop at the back of her jeans with his thumb as she filled out her deposit slip at the bank and kept his hand at the small of her back as they waited in line for a teller. She gave him her dry cleaning tickets and her grocery list and told him to call her if he ran into any trouble before she kissed him on the cheek and got out of the car.
He picked up the dry cleaning first. A little bell above the door tinkled as he entered and an ancient-looking Asian woman even smaller than Scully emerged from thin air and shuffled over to the counter with a smile.
“Pick up,” Mulder said, handing her the tickets.
The elderly woman nodded at him and disappeared into the racks of plastic-wrapped clothing. Coats and pants started whizzing by and then swayed to a stop and the woman reappeared with a bundle that had to weigh more than she did. Clearly stronger than she looked, she hefted the entire bundle up and hooked the wire hangers onto a pole for his inspection.
He recognized the black pantsuit as the one that had been mud-splattered in Missouri. The cream-colored blouse that she’d dropped mustard on from the hot dog he’d convinced her to eat. The green blazer that had gotten blood-stained during an impromptu autopsy. The navy pantsuit that was sticky with sap from a run through a forest in Virginia. Everything looked good as new.
“You’re a miracle worker,” he said, as he paid the woman.
“Yes,” she answered.
He chuckled and draped the clothes off the rack over his arm. The hangers were too thick to hang on the hooks in the car so he laid them out in the back seat and headed to the store. That was when things turned potentially hazardous. Luckily for Mulder, he may have only known Scully intimately for a little over a month, but he had seven years of experience with her behind him to help decipher the list.
Separately, items like ‘tomatoes,’ ‘carrots,’ ‘pickles,’ ‘bread,’ and ‘mayo,’ could mean anything. However, Mulder knew that she only ate cherry tomatoes on salads. She liked baby carrots for dipping into ranch dressing as a snack. Pickles actually meant gherkins, which she had for a side with tuna sandwiches only on rye bread. The mayo was a bit of a mystery. She always held the mayo whenever they ate out, but he remembered her telling him last week that she had a craving for chicken salad and he was pretty sure there was mayonnaise in chicken salad. Chicken breast was also on the ist, so he confidently grabbed a jar of Hellman’s and headed for the meat aisle.
His cart was half-full when he turned the list over and realized there was another side to it and he backtracked to the refrigerated area for eggs. He stopped in his tracks in front of the cheeses and swallowed. Call me if you run into any trouble , the Scully in his mind said. Trouble with a capital T. T for Trouble. T for Tampons. G et a grip, Mulder , he told himself.
With as much nonchalance he could muster, he strolled into what he always just bypassed as ‘the lady aisle’ and tried to act like he knew what he was doing there. Dozens of boxes faced him, in all different colors and sizes. He tried to think about whether or not he’d actually seen tampons in Scully’s bathroom and he closed his eyes. Blue box. He was pretty sure he’d seen a blue box before and so he looked for blue boxes. The first one he picked up was maxi-pads and he quickly put it back. He knew enough to know those were not tampons.
Finally, he spotted a row of blue boxes that looked familiar, but then he was faced with a whole new challenge. What exactly was the difference between light, regular, and super? How was super plus different from just plain super? Ultra ? Did it have anything to do with how bad cramps got? Should he also pick up a bottle of Midol while he was here, even though it wasn’t on the list?
He stepped out of the way as a young woman walked by, basket slung over her arm, and plucked one of the boxes off the shelf with barely a glance. His cheeks darkened a bit with embarrassment and he stared at the empty space on the shelf. That woman was about the same size as Scully, maybe an inch or so taller, and she’d picked up a box of regular tampons. Maybe it had something to do with size, so he picked up a box of regular too and tossed it in his cart.
Then he ran into his next problem. Pantyhose. Less embarassing than the tampons, but equally as challenging. The size chart on the back helped, but the choices were daunting. Black, nude, suntan, beige, pink, sand, navy. Some nudes were different than other nudes. What was the difference between satin and sheer? What did a control top control? Some of them came in flat boxes, some of them came in eggs like there was a pantyhose laying chicken in a factory somewhere. He chuckled to himself at the thought and assumed Scully would never buy pantyhose laid by a chicken.
He selected a shade of nude in a flat-boxed brand and hoped it would be acceptable. He probably just should’ve called and asked, but he wanted to prove he was capable of being domestic without her assistance. If he got it right, he could pat himself on the back for it later. If he got it wrong, he’d remember it for next time.
He proudly picked up a bottle of the shampoo and conditioner he knew she used - he’d just used it himself that morning, in fact - but he got her the larger size since they were sharing on occasion.
He finished with her list and made some of his own additions. More popcorn, orange juice, the beer he liked, chocolate (she would thank him later), Doritos, and TV Guide. A strange feeling of pride came over him as he loaded all the items from his cart onto the conveyer belt. Soon enough, the woman scanning his purchases and the pimply-faced high schooler bagging everything up would know he had a girlfriend. Unless they thought he was some weirdo that liked ladies hosiery and made inappropriate use of feminine hygiene products. He should’ve picked up that Midol. Or a box of condoms.
“Sixty-one forty-eight,” the cashier said.
Mulder pulled out his checkbook and took the cart of groceries out to the car. Not being able to help himself, he made one more stop at a florist close to her apartment and bought a simple bouquet of red carnations.
“Honey, I’m home,” he said, using his key to open her door.
Scully was sitting on the floor in the living room, folding laundry. She craned her neck to see over the couch as he passed by and headed to the kitchen with half of the grocery bags. It would take him one more trip to the car to get the rest, and then another trip after that to get the dry cleaning and the flowers.
“Mulder,” she protested, ducking her head bashfully as he put the flowers in her lap and kissed her cheek.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing.” She tossed aside the pair of socks in her hand and took his face, bringing him into a soft kiss.
“I’ll go put the groceries away.”
“Did you get everything on the list?”
“I did.”
“ Everything ?”
“You know, I should’ve called to ask…” He leaned around the doorframe from inside the kitchen to look at her. “You just wanted plain yogurt, right?”
“Mmhm.”
“Good.” He grinned, pleased with his little joke, and started unpacking the bags.
Scully wandered in and poked through the bags to inspect his purchases. He ignored her as he neatly stacked canned soup in the pantry.
“Oh,” he said. “They didn’t have everything bagels, so I got poppyseed.”
“I smell chocolate.”
“Where do you want the bananas?”
“In that bowl.” She pointed to a bowl in the corner beneath the cabinets.
“Find the TV Guide, you’ll find the chocolate.”
The plastic bags began to dwindle and Mulder came across the toiletry items at the same time as Scully found the chocolate. She lovingly caressed the king-sized Hershey bar and then put it to her nose.
“Here,” Mulder said, handing her the bag. “If you can stop yourself from making love to the chocolate for a minute, you’ll probably want to put these away yourself.”
Scully peered into the bag and then lifted her head with one peaked eyebrow.
“Is that a ‘Mulder, I’m impressed,’ or ‘Mulder, how could you?’ expression on your face right now?”
“A little on the ‘Mulder, I’m impressed’ side.”
“Good, because do you have any idea how intimidating all those choices are?”
“Yes, Mulder, I have something of an idea.”
“You’re lucky I’m a master at deductive reasoning.”
“Deductive reasoning led you to these choices?”
He thought about telling her about the pantyhose laying chicken theory, but changed his mind. “There was a size chart on the pantyhose boxes, so that helped. As for the other...well, truth be told there was this other lady in the aisle and she looked to be about the same size as you, so I grabbed what she did.”
Scully burst out laughing. She actually laughed so hard she had to sit down and she wiped a tear away from one of her eyes. He’d never seen her laugh so hard.
“Mulder,” she choked.
“Am I horribly off target?”
“Very.” She wiped her eyes again and stood, still chuckling as she stepped closer and took his chin with her thumb and forefinger. He bent his head and she placed several smiling kisses on his lips.
“What did I get wrong?” he asked.
“Absorbency,” she answered. “The difference is in absorbency. The heavier the blood flow-”
“Okay, okay, I got it,” he interrupted. “Duly noted.”
She chuckled again as she turned away from him. He knew the tips of his ears were pink. He felt them burning hot. She walked away with the bag and he noticed she left the chocolate on the table so he hid it on the top shelf of the pantry to get her back. It would cost her several kisses and maybe a backrub later to get it back.
He finished with the groceries and went to find Scully. She was putting clothes away in the bedroom. The dry cleaning he’d picked up was now hanging in her closet.
“What do we have left?” he asked.
“Making the bed,” she answered, nodding over at the pile of sheets and blankets on the bare mattress. “Bathroom’s done. I need to dust and vacuum and there’s still towels downstairs in the dryer that should be done in about ten minutes.”
“I can definitely help with the bed and the towels.”
“All right, then.”
Scully took the left side of the bed and Mulder took the right, much like their sleeping arrangements. They pulled the fitted sheet on first, followed by the top sheet, and then her lightweight blanket and finally, the comforter. They each took a pillowcase and a pillow and then the bed was made.
Mulder went downstairs with the laundry basket to grab the towels and Scully started dusting. He sat on the floor and was four towels into folding when Scully came to stand over him, biting her lip.
“Um,” she said.
“Uh oh,” he answered.
“It’s just that, you’re folding them square.”
“Yeah.”
“They don’t fit in the cabinet that way.”
“How do they fit in the cabinet.”
Scully knelt down and showed him how to tri-fold the towels into a rectangle. He unfolded the previous four and refolded in her fashion. She told him to put any two on the towel rack in the bathroom and the rest in the linen closet in the hall. He chose the blue-grey ones for the bathroom because they were the softest.
In her bathroom, which she’d claimed was done, there was an assortment of bras and panties hanging from the shower curtain rod. He took personal delight in the ones he recognized and hoped that soon enough, he’d be familiar with her entire lingerie collection. There was a pair of navy blue, lacy panties that he would particularly enjoy seeing her in. Not to mention the red satin bra that was hanging there all innocently. What could she possibly have worn with a red satin bra, and how dare she not have flashed it to him, even a little.
“Hey, Scully,” he said, rubbing her hips as he caught her in the hall closet trying to dislodge her vacuum machine from under her coats.
“What?”
“Did you know about the Victoria’s Secret store hanging in your bathroom?”
“Yes, Mulder, I did.”
“Just checking.”
“Go sit down, stop distracting me.”
He bent his head and gave her a gentle bite on the neck before he went into the living room and cracked open the TV Guide he’d bought. While Scully vacuumed, he looked ahead to the week in TV, lifting his feet when she got close to the couch.
“There’s a Twilight Zone marathon on tomorrow night,” he said.
“What?” she asked, turning off the vacuum.
“There’s a Twilight Zone marathon on tomorrow night.”
“Oh.” She turned the vacuum back on and moved away.
“Steel Magnolias is on tonight too,” he said, quietly, knowing there was no way she could hear him over the vacuum. “No answer? Not interested? Yeah, me neither.”
“What?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Nothing.”
It was getting to be late afternoon and Mulder realized neither of them had lunch. It was late morning when they’d gone to breakfast, but he was getting a little hungry so he pulled out the Doritos for a snack. He noticed that the carnations were now resting in a vase on the kitchen table. Scully came into the kitchen and eyed his chips with disdain.
“Have we completed the list of boring household chores?” he asked.
“Mmm. Thank you.” She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him as he leaned back against the counter. “You taste like Doritos.”
“You know you like it.” He fed her a chip and then she rested her head on his chest.
“Where’d you put the chocolate?” she asked.
“That’s for later, if you’re good.”
“Does making you dinner count for being good?”
“Depends on how it turns out.”
She scoffed and then stole a chip right out of his hand and clapped the cheese dust off her fingers before the opened the refrigerator. “Chicken salad okay?”
I knew it , he thought to himself. “Sounds perfect.”
He helped her put everything together and was surprised that she didn’t try to shoo him away. They chopped and diced while waiting for the chicken to bake, then she washed and he dried while they waited for it to cool.
“This would’ve been really good as a wrap,” she said. “I should’ve put-”
“Tortillas?” he asked, opening the crisper and pulling a bag out. “Way ahead of you.”
“Spooky.”
He planted a kiss on her cheek. “That’s my middle name.”
They ate dinner and Mulder took the chocolate down from its hiding place before they got set up in the living room for their nightly movie.
“Oh, Steel Magnolias,” she said, snuggling against him on the couch. “Wait, go back!”
“Ugh, girl movie.”
She wrested the remote away from him and turned the channel back to the movie. “Your place, your movies, my place, my movies,” she reminded him.
“Oh, please, need I remind you about the ‘Animal House won’t get you laid,’ threat of weeks past?”
“It was the truth.”
“What if I said that Steel Magnolias won’t get you laid?”
She shrugged. “Doesn’t bother me in the slightest.”
He poked her in the ribs and she chuckled and squirmed against him. As they watched the movie, he fed her pieces of chocolate and ate his buttered popcorn, pretending not to notice when she snuck handfuls for herself. He would have to admit, it wasn’t a bad flick. He’d once had a crush on Sally Field as Gidget and everyone had a crush on Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. It was a good thing that Scully had fallen asleep because he’d teared up towards the end and she would’ve never let him live it down.
“Come on, Sleepyhead,” he said, walking her to her bedroom after he’d had enough channel surfing. “What time’s mass?”
“Have to meet mom at eight,” she murmured as he put her to bed under her nice, clean sheets.
“Six-thirty alarm? Or seven?”
She yawned. “Six-thirty.”
He kissed her softly and then went to throw out the uneaten popcorn and wash the bowl. The rest of the chocolate went back on the shelf and he turned out the lights in her apartment before joining her in bed.
The alarm pulled him from sleep with a groan and she silenced it before rolling over and cuddling against his chest. He reached for her as she slipped away, but she evaded his hands and he was too sleepy to even open his eyes so his arm dropped lethargically back to the bed. He listened to her shower and pried his eyes open when she came back into the bedroom to collect her clothes for church. She had a towel tucked around her chest and one wrapped around her head like a turban.
“Sexy,” he whispered to her, voice husky.
“Go back to sleep,” she said.
“Leave the door open.”
She moved closer to the bed, close enough that he could smell the citrus scent of her body wash. Close enough that he caught the flap of her towel with one hand and pulled it free. She didn’t even try to stop him, not even when he lethargically ran his hand up her side as she leaned over and kissed his face and closed eyelids.
“Go back to sleep,” she whispered again.
“I want to watch you get dressed.”
“You can barely keep your eyes open.”
“They’re open enough.”
She caressed his cheek with her nose and then moved away.
“There was a pair of navy blue panties on the curtain rod yesterday,” he said. “Lace.”
“Mmhm.” She opened her top drawer and dangled the underwear off her finger with her back to him.
“Yeah, those ones.”
She mostly ignored him, keeping herself in profile, as she slipped the panties on and then hooked a matching bra on as well. She unwrapped the towel from her hair and rubbed her head with it until it was spiky and damp. He watched her brush her teeth at the sink and then blow dry her hair with a thick, round brush. Every so often, her eyes moved to his in the reflection of the mirror.
He had started to drift back to sleep when she sat down on the side of the bed, pantyhose in hand. It wasn’t the pantyhose he bought her, this was a few shades darker. It looked like a complicated process with a lot of tugging and shifting. He heaved himself up and flopped over on his chest next to her with his arms and head dangling off the side. She watched him as he ran his hand down the side of her thigh. The hose felt so different from her skin, both rough and soft at the same time.
She walked away and he stayed dangling over the side of the bed. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her put on a short slip and a navy skirt. She pulled on a matching, baby blue top and cardigan. The make-up she applied was light and barely there. Just a touch of eyeliner, mascara, and lipstick. He smiled at the cuteness of watching her hold on to the frame of the closet as she stepped into a pair of heels that matched her skirt.
“Tell your mother I said hello,” he mumbled, face mashed into the side of the bed.
Scully sat down beside him and ran her fingers up through his hair and then down his back. He closed his eyes and hummed in appreciation.
“I forgot I have an appointment to get my nails done at one,” she said.
“Such a girl, Scully.”
“You should be thankful for that.”
“Oh, I am. The best part about you are the girl parts. Aside from your brain, of course. Gotta love that brain.”
She smiled and tweaked his ear. “We could meet for brunch.”
“You’re not going out with your mom?”
“You could join us.”
“Do you want me to?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“Okay, then. I’ll call you and let you know where we’re going. Probably around eleven.”
“Okay.”
She leaned down and kissed his cheek and he snagged her around the waist with his arm, trying to pull her back to bed as he rolled onto his back. She laughed and pushed herself free from his clutches.
“Go back to sleep,” she said. “I’ll see you later.”
He sighed and rolled back to curl up with her pillow. It smelled like her shampoo and fresh detergent. He heard the front door close and then it was silent and he missed the feel of her body lying next to his.
She’d never invited him to brunch after mass before. It felt like another new step forward. Maybe he would go with her to her nail appointment and read some girly fashion magazine or trashy celebrity gossip magazine while he waited. Or maybe he’d come back to her place and warm the bed as he waited. He would find a way to remind her there was still chocolate in the apartment somewhere and she wasn’t going to get it until he got to see those navy blue panties again before he had to go home.
He sighed again as he drifted back to sleep. He couldn’t think of a better way to have spent the weekend.
The End