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Mulder starts to lose sight of Scully as she slips away through the noisy crowd. Her red dress makes her easy to spot, but she’s so much smaller than him she maneuvers more quickly, and soon he’s resorted to elbowing his way through. He needs to apologize, to get her to listen, to try and back this whole night up and start over. He is mentally replaying their spat when he jabs an elbow directly into a velvet-covered torso.
“Fox.” Diana’s voice is flat and she doesn’t react to the elbow jab, as if she’s not wearing velvet but bronze. “I thought you were leaving.” Her eyes pin him in a questioning gaze.
“Was just looking for my coat tag,” he says in a rush. “Excuse me. Sorry about the elbow.” He tries to squeeze past but she places a hand on his forearm.
“I’ll come with you,” she sighs, “the music isn’t really my taste. And I’ve already talked to everyone I wanted to.”
Mulder is craning his neck now, half-listening to Diana, but worried Scully has already made it out the front door. “Uh-huh,” he mumbles.
“We can go back to my place,” Diana continues.
“Wait, what?” Mulder snaps his head back toward her.
“I said, we can go back to my place,” Diana raises the volume of her voice slightly, drawing the attention and a few smirks from the agents standing with her.
Mulder pulls her away from the circle and leans in conspiratorially. “Diana,” he begins, “I don’t know how I’ve given you the wrong idea here, but I am not coming back to your place.”
She looks at him blankly.
“And just so we’re clear, you’re not coming back to my place either.”
She stands up straighter in her elegant dress and gathers herself together without a hint of embarrassment or wounding in her eyes. He knows her well and he knows he’s hurt her pride, although she’ll never show it.
“Of course,” she replies as she turns back to her group. “Good night Fox.”
Mulder is frantic now and pushes his way through another boisterous scrum of young agents. He’s almost to the coat check when he hears someone calling Scully’s name. Loudly. Tipsily.
“Agent Scull-ll-ly,” the voice leers, “Lookin’ fine tonight. You gotta dance with me.”
Mulder can’t hear her response but he knows who’s voice it is. Agent Doyle. One of the young agents who sits down the row in their cubical purgatory. They don’t know his first name. Scully has her money on it being Chad. Mulder guesses it’s either Eric or Ryan. When he’s out of earshot, they call him Agent Douchebag. He’s some big-wig’s son, fresh out of the Academy, moving through the ranks more quickly than he should.
“C’mon Dana,” Doyle’s voice cuts through the din again, “We all know Spooky’s too chicken to dance with ya, and it’d be a waste of that dress not to show it off a little. Give us some action!”
Mulder’s heart rate doubles and his hands knot into fists unconsciously. He hasn’t spotted Scully yet, but he can only imagine she’s ready to smack the drunk Agent Douchebag herself.
Which is why he is floored when he sees Scully following Doyle back toward the dance floor.
“Whoa boys!” Doyle yells back towards his pack of bullpen buddies, “looks like the Ice Queen’s on fire tonight!”
“Shut up Doyle,” Scully retorts. “One dance, that’s it.”
What is she doing?! Mulder is ready to punch him himself, and he knows how Scully loathes the guy. They’ve all been drinking, but she can’t have had enough to made her this stupid.
Something has pricked her. He’s seen it before. One little thing can sets her off and she’s reckless. He can guess what it is.
“Hey Spooky,” someone calls out as Mulder elbows his way through another jumble of agents. “You lookin’ for the missus? She’s with Doyle.”
“You ever gonna hit that?” Another tipsy agent, Roberts, asks. “‘Cause if you’re not…”
The look Mulder gives him stops Roberts cold. It’s all Mulder can do not to start swinging, but this is the problem with work events -- there are too many professional consequences for routine misbehavior. Instead, Mulder knots his fists tighter and bites back his response. He bites so hard he can taste blood on his lip.
Doyle is dragging -- he’s too sloshed to manage actual dancing -- Scully around the dance floor to the sounds of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.”
Fucking appropriate, Mulder thinks as he strides toward them.
To Doyle’s credit, he is keeping his hands at respectable locations, her waist, her elbow. Or maybe it’s that Scully’s reputation as a sureshot precedes her, and despite his inebriated state, he knows better than to piss her off.
At last, Mulder reaches them and taps Doyle on the shoulder while simultaneously removing his arm from Scully’s waist. “I’m cutting in Doyle,” Mulder commands.
“Sp-p-pooky” Doyle laughs as he steps back, “what’re you doin’? Didn’t take you for the dancin’ type.”
“What are you doing?” Scully whispers pointedly at him.
“What does it look like I’m doing?” Mulder fires back. “I’m cutting in on Agent Douchebag here.”
“Who says I want to be cut in on?”
“I do,” Mulder says. He takes one of Scully’s hands in his, and curves his other around to settle in the hollow of her back. Scully’s free hand grasps his bicep, but she doesn’t meet his gaze. He can feel annoyance and anger radiating off her along with the scent of her perfume. He looks down at her, but she’s fixed her eyes at some spot in the distance over his shoulder. They don’t talk and every time their eyes flick past one another, he feels her grip his arm more tightly. It’s a peppy song, and the effort of keeping in step keeps them busy.
And then the song ends. The band begins playing Vince Guaraldi’s song from the Charlie Brown Christmas special, “Christmastime is Here,” and almost immediately the crowd thins out. There are a few grumbles about the selection, about how sad and unChristmaslike the song is, but it’s one of Mulder’s favorites. He leans down toward Scully’s ear and whispers. “Another dance?” He waits, giving her a half-smile. “Please?”
Scully swallows and shifts slightly closer to him, moving her hand from his bicep to slip under his arm and around his back. She looks up with a half-smile of her own and says softly, “Okay.”