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Mulder discovered that crutches on sand weren’t too bad. He had to lift them a little higher to clear the uneven terrain but the sand didn’t give like he thought it would, allowing him to move pretty close to normal speed and stature. After consuming breakfast, he scooted Scully, rubber-tipped crutch end to her backside, towards the glass door, “let’s go see how horribly cold the water is.”
“It’s going to be freezing, Mulder. It’s only May.”
“Then we should probably go buy you a wetsuit.”
Shaking her head, “I’m not buying a wetsuit for a few days. I will survive not getting in the water as long as I can look at it and hear it and smell it.”
“But you’re still going to put on your bathing suit, right?”
His mostly amusing, only slightly dead serious gaze made her blush but her tan covered it well, “yes, Mulder. I plan on enjoying the sun as much as I can.” Wondering if she could make him squirm, “why?”
She should have known he wouldn’t squirm but answer in that directly honest to a fault way that always gave him the upper hand, “because you are hot in your bathing suit and I enjoy looking at you in it.”
Oh, the unwritten rules being broken today were astounding and the lines being toyed with made her heart jump, allowing her only one response, “still trying to catch me changing, aren’t you?”
“You know it, G-Woman.”
&&&&&&&&&&
They spent part of the morning shopping for a few cold things for the refrigerator, namely drinks and pudding, “yes, I want some pudding and forgot to buy it.”
“I didn’t say a word, Mulder.”
“See if I share my pudding with you.”
“Mulder, I didn’t say anything.”
“Fine, I’ll share my pudding with you. Why do you have to be so demanding?”
“Mulder, I didn’t say a thing about your buying pudding.”
Putting a second set of pudding cups in the small cart, “better get two ‘cause I know you’re going to eat all my pudding.”
“Oh, my God, this is like the Grand Canyon all over again! You just want to see how many times you can use pudding in a conversation, don’t you?”
Knocking her heel with his crutch, “move along. Blocking the aisle. Other people want pudding, too, you know.”
“Why do I do things with you?”
“Because you love me.”
Hanging her head in mock shame, “whatever.”
After unloading back at the house, which Mulder dubbed Babar because of the elephant gray color, “so, I looked at the weather in the paper at the store and it says tonight is supposed to be clear and the moon won’t be up until 2am or something. I say we go to the beach, then eat, then take a long nap so we can stay up tonight to look at the stars. I’ve got constellation questions I believe only you can answer.”
“Can we have pudding while you ask your constellation questions?”
“Of course. Pudding is star-gazing food.”
“Then I agree to your well-constructed plan.”
&&&&&&&&&&
She innocently walked up the stairs and found Mulder butt-naked, facing away, lily-white ass innocently standing there, farmer tan abounding from the knees down while above was skin she was sure had never seen the light of day. Silently, she reversed direction down the steps, making it back to the kitchen before she broke into an enormous grin, shaking her head in giddy amusement. Allowing 30 seconds of wonderment, she then took a deep breath, headed back to the stairs and met Mulder on his way down, “ready to go?”
As he maneuvered one step at a time on his butt, “yup. Just need to grab my backpack and I’ll be good.”
Crossing the beach, they found that the water was indeed cold and her feet went numb after a few minutes but she was happy, having been in two oceans on the same vacation …
“Three, Scully. Three oceans. Atlantic, Pacific and Mexican-Pacific.”
“Mexican-Pacific is not its own ocean, Mulder.”
“I’m counting it as such.”
“Crazy person.”
… while the sun beat down on the crown of her bare head, glinted off the water and made her squint when she turned in Mulder’s direction, “how are the crutches treating you?”
He’d sat down a little ways behind her, leaning back on his hands, eyes shut to the sky, “pretty good. I wouldn’t want to take a ten-mile hike down the beach but this was fine.”
Noticing that he’d dug an old blanket out of his backpack and was arranging so he could recline further, “where’d that come from?”
“Found it in Babar’s closet. A bunch of sand came out of it when I pulled it down so I figure this is exactly what it was meant for and I’m putting it to good use.”
Hovering over him, “room for two?”
“There’s always room for you. You should know that by now.”
Settling back, her head on a rolled up towel, she patted his hand where it fell beside hers, “I just like to check sometimes.”
He twined just his little finger with hers, “did you extra sunscreen your nose?”
“Yes, Mulder.”
“Good. Don’t want it turning all red. People’ll think you’re an alcoholic.”
“Always looking out for me.”
&&&&&&&&&
The beach was wonderfully quiet, tourists not there yet, residents in school and at jobs, and given how far away their little house was from the main road or any visible access road at all, they had the beach to themselves. Scully was debating just napping there for the afternoon but Mulder had other ideas. Feeling a hand snake around her elbow, “you’re turning pink. We should probably get out of the sun for awhile.”
Stretching her arms over her head, her bathing suit shifting in all kinds of good places in Mulder’s opinion, “do we have to? I’m like the heat. I swear, I don’t think I’ll ever get enough of it after Antarctica.”
He understood completely, “but if we stay out here, you’re going to burn and then the next two days won’t be very much fun.”
Grumbling under her breath, she sat up, tucking her legs under her, “want to go to the Memorial then?”
Still reclined, “in all great honesty, I’m enjoying doing absolutely not a damn thing. I think we just need to continue doing it in the shade for awhile.”
“Porch?”
“Porch.”
The porch was similarly baking in the sun so they headed inside after brushing off, Scully beckoning towards the stairs, “I’m going to go lay down. Sun makes me tired.”
“Agreed. Should we just start our ‘we’re old and need to sleep because we’re staying up all night’ nap now?”
In answer, she climbed the steps, exaggerating her hip swing just enough that she heard Mulder swallow.
Honest-to-God, she heard the gulp four steps away from him and with a grin, she continued her upward movement, hoping he wouldn’t fall down the stairs in his hurry to follow.
She then lay there, shades half pulled to dim the room, windows all thrown open wide, Mulder on his side, his bare chest six inches from her and arms thrown all akimbo around the mattress, the back of one hand on her shoulder, the other tossed over his side to hang against his back.
She lay there wondering just why she was still thinking about Mulder’s derriere. It’s not like she hadn’t seen it before but for the first time, she didn’t announce that she’d seen it, rubbing in the fact that she’d seen it and eluded to the fact that she’d see it again while he couldn’t manage to see more than her bare back in her bathing suit, regardless of how hard he tried.
She lay there wondering what that whole hip-sashay, gulping swallow thing had been about less than an hour ago.
She lay there wondering why the hell she couldn’t go to sleep. She was tired. Her eyes were burning. She was comfortable and relaxed and she should just tell her brain to shut up so she could take her damn nap.
Mulder chose that moment to roll over, flopping his previously behind-his-back hand over her belly.
The belly covered with only an ultrathin layer of spandex and full of sudden, flapping butterflies.
She never fell asleep.
&&&&&&&&&&&
“How can you be yawning? We took a three hour sleep this afternoon.”
Mulder, in his cargo shorts and his black cast and his disarrayed hair and his grin with that stupid piece of lettuce stuck in his tooth and his t-shirt with a surfing cat declaring the Outer Banks fun for everyone, was really getting on her nerves. He looked all fresh as a daisy sitting there in the lounge chair she dragged down into the sand while she felt like a walking zombie whose shirt wasn’t fitting correctly and whose hair kept falling in her eyes and whose back was aching from whatever she’d done during the day that she didn’t remember.
Deciding to admit just a little, “I didn’t actually sleep that much.”
Mulder slid forward, reaching for his crutches, “you want to just go to bed? We can do this tomorrow or something?”
“Nope, now scoot over. Just don’t judge me if I fall asleep mid-sentence.”
Scoot he did, “never.”
About to sit down, she suddenly felt something odd and it dawned on her why her back was hurting. Shutting her eyes, she sighed, “damn it.”
“What’s ‘damn it’?”
“I just figured out why my back is hurting.”
“Did you hurt yourself?”
“Nope.”
Staring at her for a moment, he did the math, “oh … sorry.”
“I hate being a girl sometimes.” Once she’d gone to the bathroom and returned, she wiggled herself in beside Mulder, “you should tell me a story.”
“I only know the one about Ariadne and Bacchus and the Northern Crown.”
Her head came to rest on his shoulder, “do tell.”
Eventually, drugs eliminated her backache and comfortably half-asleep against him, Scully finished her story of Cassiopeia, then fell into silence, which Mulder only broke after a few minutes, “I feel very small right now.”
“Small?”
“Insignificant. There are 400 billion stars out there and some of them have stories and most of them don’t and I’m one person on one of those stars and I’m six foot nothing when the universe is infinitely enormous and I feel like I’m not even a speck on a speck on a speck.”
She didn’t like him talking like that, especially when he was the largest thing in her universe, “You are not insignificant to me. You have never been insignificant to me and you never will be. You take up most of my existence, Mulder and if you were anywhere near insignificant, I wouldn’t be here, cuddled up on a chair on the beach in North Carolina under the stars and …” She stopped her tongue just in time, her confession nearly going off the rails.
His own confession burst forth, however, covering up whatever she might have finished with, “I have been thinking non-stop about you for the last five weeks.”
Working her hand up and onto his chest, leg slipping over his, “I didn’t sleep this afternoon because you flopped your arm over my stomach.”
“My arm has the power to rob you of sleep?”
Declarations were easier with the ocean conversing in the background, “You breathing has the power to rob me of sleep.”
“Then let’s get upstairs. The bed’s more comfortable than this chair.”
“Are you gonna flop your arm over me?”
“There’s a really good chance.”
Bold when she was near dreamland, “I’d demand to be carried if you had two working feet.”
Once up in the bedroom, she crashed on her side and without pretense, backed up into his chest in an instant, fumbling behind her for his hand. He smiled into the back of her head as she pulled his hand around her, sighing the moment his fingers drifted down her middle.
Not able to resist, he whispered over her shoulder, “I can move my hand north or south. Totally up to you.”
“G’night, Mulder.”
“We never ate our pudding.”
“Then we’ll have it for breakfast.”
“G’night, Scully.”