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Mulder strides away, brushing off Diana’s confused, “Fox? Where are you going? What’s wrong?” He takes one last glance at the dancers and sees Scully turn her head to place a small kiss on Skinner’s cheek. The look Skinner gives him as they sashay away gnaws at him as Mulder makes his way back to the coat check.
Mulder knows she’s mad. He can’t blame her, really. One minute they’re venturing into intimate partner territory, and the next, he’s slow dancing with his ex. He’s seen before how fast Scully can downshift from hot to cold, but the look she just gave him was icier than the D.C. streets outside.
If only she’d just let him explain. He’d been on his way to get them drinks, thankful for the moment to recover from the jolt of adrenaline that had hit him when he’d seen her walking toward him in what could only be described as a criminally provocative dress. He almost wondered if she’d been intending to get a rise out of him. And, hoo boy, she had.
He had been concentrating on regaining control of his faculties when Diana had accosted him near the dance floor, pulling him with her before he could protest. He hadn’t wanted to make any kind of a scene, not here, not with Kersh standing nearby, not with the fate of the X Files resting in Diana’s hands. So he’d gone along, and slowly maneuvered them toward the back of the dance floor, hoping Scully would stay put and wait for him long enough to avoid seeing them together.
From the beginning, Scully has been less than subtle about her feelings toward Diana. Nothing he says seems to convince her that Diana’s no threat. This unnerves him. He is not used to seeing Scully like this -- in fact, it’s a side of Scully he wasn’t sure even existed. Jealousy, if that is what it is, seems so far beneath her.
But it’s not beneath him, and having to watch Skinner dance with her -- in that dress, that decadent, form-caressing, plunging-neck (okay, now his thoughts are getting away from him) dress -- he wasn’t going to stand around and watch.
He drums his fingers impatiently on the coat check desk, craning his neck for the attendant.
“Leaving already, sir?” the attendant asks as he returns. “I’ll just need your tag.”
Mulder reaches into the slim hip pocket of his trousers, but it’s empty. He pats down the front of his black Armani jacket, trying to remember where he’d slipped the check tag. He opens his jacket and tries the lapel. He shoves both his hands in his back pockets, sure by now that he’s missed it.
“God dammit,” he whispers under his breath. “It’s just a black trench, London Fog, I think,” he directs the attendant. “I’ve lost my tag. Do you think you can just help me without it?”
“Sir,” the attendant gives him an exasperated look, “this is an FBI ball, isn’t it?”
“What’s your point?”
“I just mean, you’re not exactly the only guy here in a black trench.”
Mulder sighs and bumps a fist on the counter. “Right,” he sighs. “I’ll be right back.”
The band is now skipping along to “Jingle Bell Rock,” and it’s evident that most guests are well into drink number two, at least. There’s more laughter and the noise level in the atrium has risen considerably.
It’s pissing him off.
Things tonight had gotten off to a such good start. He had found the courage to vocalize just exactly what he was feeling at the moment he was feeling it. This, as concerns he and Scully, is no small matter. And then, it’s one step forward and about twenty steps back.
Damn it, Diana, he fumes silently.
He moves through the mingling crowd as quickly as he can, back to the plaque by the Apollo lunar landing module. He must have dropped his tag in the aftermath of the wine glass accident, or it could’ve slipped out of his pocket as he had fidgeted there waiting for Scully. He knows he’s a terrible fidgeter, but it hadn’t seemed appropriate to bring sunflower seeds to a fancy ball. He remembers now how he’d thrust his hands into his pockets, smoothing the tag over and over between his fingers, reading the same few sentences about Neil Armstrong over and over, trying not to keep glancing at the doorway. The tag is probably somewhere on the floor there.
He bends down to examine some scraps of paper, realizing as he does that anything he dropped likely got swept up by the waiter when they cleaned up his broken wine glass. He rests on his heels a moment. He can come get the coat tomorrow. It won’t be the first cold night he’s gone home without a jacket.
As he rises, Mulder’s shoulder bumps directly into Scully’s right elbow, knocking her off balance on her precarious heels.
“Mul--!” she blurts out as he breaks her fall, steadying her on her feet as he stands up next to her. “What on earth are you doing?”
The tone of her voice is cool, but still concerned.
“Lost my coat check tag.” He shrugs. “Scully, let me explain --”
“Mulder,” she stops him. “We’ve been over this. I don’t care what -- or who -- you do in your free time. But you know how I feel about her.”
“Oh do I?” Mulder retorts in a sing songy voice, unable to clamp down on his sarcasm in the face of her unreasonableness. “Tell me, Scully, how do you really feel about her?”
Scully glares at him, the fire in her eyes rising, her neck flushing to match the red of her dress. God help him, the sight of it is turning him on, even more than he’d been when he’d bent to whisper a compliment in her ear and caught a whiff of her perfume.
“I’m just getting my purse,” she pronounces as she grabs her clutch from where she’d left it on the catering tray.
“Why?” Mulder prods, “You going somewhere? Hot after party plans with Skinner?”
What are you doing, Mulder berates himself internally, this is not helping things. But their patterns are too compelling, too familiar. If he thrusts, she parrys. It’s what they do best.
“No Mulder, though I don’t see what business of yours it would be if I did,” Scully retorts with a toss of her head before uttering three final words. “I’m going home.”
He wishes he can say he’s crushed to see her go, but that would be lying. He enjoys the sight of her walking away far more than he should. The firmness of her angry steps sharpens the cut of her calves, and from this vantage, the dip of her tiny waist seems even more pronounced. He’s utterly hopeless.
So he follows her.