Part 3/5

***

Entering the Hoover building the next morning, Mulder reflected on the
two phone calls he had received the night before. On the surface,
Diana's had started out warm and conciliatory, while Scully's had begun
in a typically cool and cautious manner. But by the end.... As he
trudged up three flights of stairs, he heard Scully's voice in his head.

"How are you feeling, Mulder?"

"Can you describe the pain?"

"How many pills have you taken today?"

"You can take two more tonight. What have you eaten?"

"Ketchup is not a vegetable, Mulder."

"Turkey jerky? No, I can't say that I have. Are you sleepy at all?"

"I don't remember any lullabies."

"Umm -- reading yesterday's paper and watching television -- I caught
the last part of Casablanca."

"I would have chosen... I don't know, Mulder. Who do you think I would
have chosen?"

"OK, I guess I'd have to say she made the right choice in Casablanca --
and the wrong choice in Paris."

"Because saying... making commitments... a commitment... is a very
serious thing. I... I think you should try to get some more sleep,
Mulder."

"No."

"I'm fine, just sleepy. Are you coming in tomorrow?"

"Mulder, you don't have to come in just to keep an eye on MacElroy."

"He is not a mutant soul-sucker sent by Kersh to spy on us, Mulder, he's
an accountant."

"Well, sometimes, I am right."

"Mulder, besides all the other things I have to think about where you're
concerned, I'm now starting to worry that your relationship with reality
is becoming estranged."

"Yes, always. It's practically a full time job."

"I... Umm -- take care of yourself, Mulder. Call me if... Let me know if
the pain gets worse."

"The pain in your head, Mulder."

"Are you still there?"

"Good night, Mulder. I want-- hope you'll... feel better... See you
tomorrow."

With that, he had drifted into dreamless sleep, carried on the sound of
her voice. Not loving, perhaps, but caring and concerned, as always.

Smiling cynically at his newly sentimental self, and puffing slightly,
he opened the door from the stairwell and started down the hallway
leading to his new... area. Oh well, at least Scully had a real desk
next to his, now.

"Fox!" He heard behind him. He winced. Her voice wasn't loud, but it
carried. He put his head down and kept walking.

"Fox, please stop, I'd like to speak with you," he heard, this time
right beside him.

Suppressing a sigh, he stopped and turned to look at her. "Diana," he
said, in a neutral voice.

"I hope you're in a better mood today," she began.

"As opposed to what?" he asked, just to see if she'd swallow her
inevitable annoyance for the sake of whatever agenda she was pursuing at
the moment.

"I thought you might like to hear about a case we've been working on,"
she said, her face carefully composed. "An X-File." He felt her hand
come to rest on his arm.

Ordinarily, those magic words would have caught and held his attention,
but his attention was suddenly caught by something else. He turned his
head at the sound of voices coming down the hall, and got an eyeful of
Scully, in animated conversation. With Skinner.

"Actually, Scully and I are working on something pretty interesting
right now," he said absently. As far as he knew, the last time Scully
and Skinner had exchanged this many words outside Skinner's office, they
had been pointing guns at each other.

The approaching pair came even with Mulder and Diana just in time for
him to hear Scully say, with a smile that made his heart do a little
backflip, "...but the coffee at Georgetown General is much worse. You
should try it sometime."

Skinner replied, with a smile that affected Mulder in another way
entirely, "I'm sure Mulder will see to that."

Scully and Skinner slowed to a halt, and the four of them formed an
uneasy rectangle on the linoleum.

"Agent Mulder, Agent Fowley," said Skinner.

"Director Skinner, Agent Scully," said Diana.

"Agent Smart, Agent 99," said Mulder, under his breath.

"Mulder," said Scully, under hers.

Skinner cleared his throat, then said, "How are you feeling, Agent
Mulder?"

"Still damp enough to grow mushrooms," replied Mulder. "Thanks for
asking, sir."

"I thought you were in a minor traffic accident," Diana said
suspiciously. "Was it near some water?"

"According to Scully, only in my mind," said Mulder, not able to figure
out how to shake off Diana's hand without drawing too much attention.

Diana shot Mulder a perplexed look, then turned to Scully. "Fox was just
telling me that you and he have found something very intriguing to work
on since moving up out of the basement."

"He did? said Scully, with a blank stare, which was rapidly replaced by
a look that only Mulder knew well enough to interpret as a glare.
Particularly since it was directed at him. "Did he?" she asked again.

"Yeah, you know," said Mulder, finally breaking contact with Diana by
leaning down and speaking near Scully's ear, "the anomaly in
accounting."

"Oh," said Diana, brightening, "a fraud case? How... thrilling."

"You have no idea," said Scully. "Let's get to it, shall we, Mulder?"

"I thought you'd never ask," said Mulder.

"Perhaps we can take a rain check," said Diana, speaking over Scully's
"It's been nice talking with you again, Sir," to Skinner.

Mulder said "Sir," to Skinner, and "Yeah, sure," to Diana, then turned
to overtake Scully, who was halfway down the hallway, after bidding
Skinner a warm good-bye, and Diana nothing at all.

Reaching her side, he said, "Morning, Scully. Alone at last," hoping to
get one of those smiles she seemed to be throwing out freely this
morning.

"Mulder," she said.

S.O.L. there, he thought. "Umm -- I'm feeling much better, " he
volunteered.

"Good for you, Mulder," she said, entering the bullpen and moving toward
her desk.

"So you and Skinner will probably have to postpone that date at the
Georgetown General cafeteria. Just thought I'd warn you," he said.

"Why, that's considerate of you, Mulder," said Scully, turning on her
computer and depositing her briefcase in a bottom desk drawer, which she
closed with a controlled shove. "I guess that rumor about you being up
for FBI Humanitarian of the Year is true, then. You can stop lobbying
now. I'm sure Agent Fowley has already cast her vote."

If he'd been capable of the expression, he would have gaped at her. "You
hear some nasty rumors Scully," he said.

"Agent Scully," said a timid voice behind him. He turned and came
face-to-face with a bow tie, then looked up into a bashfully eager face.

"MacElroy," said Mulder.

"Oh," said MacElroy, looking down as if seeing Mulder for the first
time. "Good morning, Agent Mulder." Looking over Mulder's head, he
continued, "How are you this morning, Agent Scully?"

Scully looked up -- way up -- and delivered the second smile of the
morning that missed Mulder by a mile. "Very well, thank you, Harvey,"
she said. "Have you finished with the invoices?"

"Yes," said MacElroy, beaming. "I thought you might like to see
something interesting."

"What could it possibly be?" said Mulder, voice full of wonder. He got
the glare that seemed to be on special today, just for him, from Scully.

"I'll be right there, Harvey" said Scully, and waited for the other man
to smile happily, and walk back to his own desk. "I know how much this
sort of thing bores you, Mulder," she said. "I'll take care of it."

"You're too good to me, Scully," said Mulder. "Now if only I could
figure out a way to get you to go to the dentist for me and write
birthday cards to my Aunt Mabel. You know, the rich one."

"You still don't get it, do you, Mulder?" said Scully, selecting several
folders from the file organizer on her desk.

She moved around her desk and stopped in front of him. "You'll never get
me to cover for you, to make excuses for you, or to save your ass --
unless I want to. Lucky for you..."

Mulder's heart almost stopped. The smile that had kept missing him all
morning hit him full in the face.

"Lucky for you," Scully continued, as she brushed past him, "I want to."

Mulder dropped into his chair and reached up to touch his bruised cheek,
which was suddenly throbbing with heat. He checked his pocket for the
bottle of painkillers, then strolled over to the water cooler in the
corner. Along the way, he rediscovered, to his dismay, what he and
Scully had been missing all those years cloistered in the basement:
extreme and unseemly interest in their every move, poorly disguised as
camaraderie. He carefully avoided the gazes that tried to engage his,
and mumbled a general "Morning" in response to the ragged chorus of
"Mulder"s that met him at the water cooler. He tipped his head back to
wash down the pills, and fought the sudden tilt of the ground under his
feet.

Back at his desk, while checking if Frohike had gotten any more
information on the SS squadron assigned to board the Queen Anne, he was
met with a message from his Area 51 contact. Sighing, he considered
trying to get Scully to go with him... then remembered that he was
having a hard time getting Scully do anything he wanted her to, these
days.

But if she wanted to.... He drifted into a reverie in which he and
Scully discovered, to their mutual delight, that they each wanted the
same thing, at the same time.

He grimaced as he heard furtive whispering behind him. Didn't these
people have some investigating to do? The whispering increased in
volume. He turned irritably and started at the sight of Scully, seated
at her desk. When had she gone past him? His eyes shifted to the
indistinct figure of a man, leaning over her and pointing out something
in the papers Scully was holding. Jesus, MacElroy, he thought, are you
that desperate? He brushed away the memory of the many times he had
manufactured an excuse to lean over, across, or closer to Scully.

Scully was biting her lip, and both Mulder and the other man became
transfixed at the sight. Taking unfair advantage of his nearness, the
man behind Scully reached around her and placed his hand on her cheek.
She stopped talking and looked up at him. He tipped her head further and
kissed her gently.

"Hey!" Said Mulder.

Startled, the couple jumped apart.

Scully looked embarrassed. Skinner looked furious.

***

"What's going on?" demanded Mulder.

"What business is that of yours?" said Skinner, his voice belligerent.

Mulder moved toward Scully's desk. "She's mine," he growled, startled at
the venom in his own voice. He halted in his tracks at the sight of
Scully, standing up and moving in front of Skinner, as if to shield him
from Mulder's approach.

"I'm not a possession, buster," she said. "Not yours, not his."

Mulder noted with satisfaction the disappointment that flickered across
Skinner's face. He looked back at Scully, who had moved around the desk
and was approaching him. He took an involuntary step backward. "Scully,"
he said, "I can't believe you--"

"I am not Scully," she interrupted. "And if this is the way you treat
her, I'm not surprised that she won't love you." She halted in front of
him.

"How do you know...." He looked around, and realized that he was back in
the shadowy office he had stumbled into before, the one where he thought
he had found -- and lost -- Scully.

"You might be a pretty persuasive kind of guy," continued this dream
version of Scully, "You certainly were on the Queen Anne, when you
talked me into turning the ship around, even though it was suicide. You
almost did it again, last night in the club, when you tried to sweet
talk me into falling for you."

Marching back to the other man, she took one of his hands, relaxing it
from the fist it had been clenched in ever since Mulder had appeared.
"But I'm through with having others choose how my life goes, and that
goes for you, too. I choose what I want to do, like I chose to believe
you on that ship. And like I chose to love him."

Though Mulder knew instinctively that this was a Scully and Skinner
conjured up by his own imagination, he still felt a flash of jealousy at
the intimate look they exchanged following the woman's last declaration.
"You're a lucky man," he said to the man before him.

"What makes you think it was luck?" said the Skinner lookalike. Do you
know how long I've waited for her? Do you know how rare it is to find a
woman like this?"

Better than you, thought Mulder bitterly. "So how'd you do it? Tell me
your secret," he said, only half-joking.

"Well, I tried being reserved and respectful. I tried being protective.
I tried flirtation, innuendo, and charm."

Now I know I'm dreaming, thought Mulder.

"In the end. I tried loving her, just loving her, and trusting her to
make the right choice," the lucky man continued. "It wasn't the easiest
plan -- but it seems to have worked," he finished in wonder, looking
down at his red haired companion, who smiled at him, then turned back to
Mulder.

"All that aside," she said, the business-like tone belying the glow on
her face, "we still have a job to do. One for which a man of your
persuasive abilities would be perfect. Will you help us?"

Mulder was eager to find a way back to his real Scully. "I don't think
I..." he began, and was struck dumb by the sight of a large white
rabbit, walking through the back door of the office.

"Did you ask him?" said the rabbit, to the couple standing before
Mulder. "What did he say?" The rabbit turned, and placed a large paw on
Mulder's shoulder.

"Agent Mulder? Agent Mulder," said MacElroy. "You have to help us."

***

Mulder jumped up as he came back to consciousness, then watched in
bemusement as Agent MacElroy jumped much higher. "If you could shoot,
MacElroy," he said "I'd call up Van Gundy, take my ten percent, and
retire."

MacElroy replied, with a puzzled look. "I may do mainly paperwork, Agent
Mulder, but I still maintain an excellent firearms proficiency rating."

"Well that's a relief," said Mulder, "since you never know when we might
run into a rogue gang of tax analysts." It felt as if hours had passed
since he'd walked into the bullpen, but a glance at his watch confirmed
that he'd zoned out for just a few minutes. "Uhh -- where's Scully?"

MacElroy brightened. "She's at my desk," he said. "We were just about to
get started, when she asked me to come get you. She needs clarification
of some notes you made in Buhl."

"I made some notes?" said Mulder. "Oh, yeah, Buhl. That's where we made
the Elvis sighting."

"Elvis is dead, Agent Mulder," said MacElroy, disapprovingly, as they
began to walk across the bullpen.

"Oh? Then why was he ordering so much fertilizer?" said Mulder.

"You-- He--" sputtered MacElroy behind him. "Agent Scully didn't mention
that."

"Agent Scully," said Mulder, turning to face MacElroy, "exercises
extreme discretion when it comes to matters of National Security. You
should know that." His mouth curved in an almost imperceptible smile.
Leaving the other man standing in confusion, he turned and made a
beeline for Scully. He grabbed the chair next hers, the one that
MacElroy had obviously set up for himself.

Mulder let his smile develop a bit, to the beatific stage. He directed
it first at MacElroy, forced to pull a chair over from the next desk and
sit across from them, then at Scully. She arched an eyebrow at him but
made no comment on the new seating arrangements. A faint glimmer of
memory told him that he had usurped this place from someone other than
MacElroy, but he couldn't for the life of him remember who that might
be. He hitched his chair closer, surreptitiously making contact with her
shoulder. As she leaned toward him to show him some figures on the
papers she had spread before them, he turned his head so that his cheek
just brushed her hair, releasing a hint of sweet Scully fragrance.

There was something he had to tell her, he thought. No, that wasn't
right. There was something he had to let her tell him. He felt a tremor
of anticipation at the thought of what that might be. Ah well, it would
come to him. He would make it happen.

***

End Part 3/5

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