TITLE: I Like This
AUTHOR: aRcaDIaNFall$
FEEDBACK: arcadianfalls@yahoo.com.au
RATING: PG-13
SPOILERS: None. Set somewhere pre-Requiem.
CLASSIFICATION: A, R, a little H, UST
SUMMARY: Scully is at Mulder's place to help him choose a baby photo
for a fundraising competition at the bureau.
--> http://www.geocities.com/arcadianfalls/


I Like This
by aRcaDIaNFall$


She was ten minutes early. Typical Scully. She waved a paper bag
sporting a familiar logo and I caught a whiff. I smiled appreciatively.
My favourite Chinese place.
A light touch on her arm, I led her in. She headed to the couch,
dropping the bag on the coffee table and sitting back, her hands to her
face as she yawned.

I smiled. "Tired?"

She nodded, smiling sheepishly. "I spent the day at the mall. The
post-Christmas sales were on."

Scully wasn't the 'retail therapy' sort, I knew, but with what we got
paid and the hours we kept, there wasn't always much choice. "Ouch."

"Tell me about it."

I grabbed plates and cutlery from the kitchen and dropped down on the
couch beside her, pulling the bag open and fishing out the hot cartons
one by one, breathing in the spicy aroma. "So whaddya get?"

She reached forward, grabbed a fork, tugged open a carton and stabbed
at a piece of chicken, a hand under to catch the dripping sauce as she
brought it to her mouth, taking a bite. "Lots," she answered, her mouth
full. She tugged at the fabric of the pants she was wearing, and
pointed to her shoes. "Sixty percent off," she announced, still
chewing. "Last size sixes they had. I had to claw my way to them."

I dutifully inspected the shoes. They were black and strappy, more
girly than she normally went for, but with the usual sizeable heel.
Definitely more girly, especially with the half-painted toenails
exposed for the world to see. I liked them. I liked when Scully got
giggly and girly.

She was already digging into the cartons, dishing them out for the both
of us with renewed energy. Playing mother. Her plate filled, she
settled herself on the couch and started to dig through it, pausing
after a few mouthfuls and pulling a face. "Spicy."

I got her a glass of water from the kitchen, then went back again to
grab some wine glasses and find the bottle of red I had stashed in the
back of a cupboard. 

I filled the glasses and she put her already half-empty plate down to
pick up her glass. "What are we celebrating?"

I smiled, and shrugged. "Your new shoes?"

"I don't know if I can second that. They're giving me blisters
already." The wine glass precariously in one hand, she reached down
with the other to tug first one shoe off, then the other, kicking them
under the coffee table. Then she drew her feet up under her, and
brought her glass to mine. "Now we can toast."


I watched her as we ate and talked. She was lively despite her
tiredness, more relaxed than I often saw her, filled with a giggly sort
of warmth. There were times when she seemed impatient with me or angry
at me, but now in her smile and her sparkling eyes I could see how
content she was in my presence. She was enjoying herself, and I was so
damn glad to see it.

She'd finished eating and cleaned out the containers, and was sitting
back sipping at her refilled wine glass, watching me with an amused
sort of affection. Usually I ate faster and she ate less, which meant
we finished together. Tonight, she was hungry, and she'd gotten a head
start.

I was barely done when she took the cutlery and plate from my hands,
whisking them away. I heard them clatter in the sink and a short spurt
of water which made the pipes groan. She came back in, drying her hands
on a dishtowel, and sat back down beside me, tossing the towel to me.
"Okay, show me the contenders."

I'd almost forgotten her reason for being there, and it took me a while
to realise what she was referring to. I rose, going over to the desk
and pulling open a drawer, removing the old photo album. 

As part of a fundraising campaign for a new daycare facility at Bureau
DC headquarters, there was a guess-whose-baby-photo competition, and
Scully, though nowdays usually as reticent as I when it came to Bureau
functions, was adamant that we were participating. Her being at my
apartment to help me pick a photograph left no opportunity to wriggle
out.

I sat back down beside her on the couch and rested the heavy volume on
my knee, the weight spread across our laps as I opened it.

The first dozen pages or so were filled with old family photos, taken
long before I was born. I moved past them quickly, not eager to be
reminded of my father's more nefarious activities, past the pictures of
a wrinkled newborn in my mother's arms, and finally settled on a double
spread documenting my first few months.

"Oh, Mulder..." Scully drew the album closer to her, her fingertips
lightly touching the images through the acetate sheet. "Look at you!" 

I smiled sheepishly, a little embarrassed by my combed down hair,
chubby cheeks and wide, startled gaze. "Yeah, well, that was a long
time ago, remember."

Her smile widened, her shining eyes still studying the photographs.
"You were a cutie. Look at this one! What's that face you're pulling?" 

I just smiled, sitting back a little, more interested by the sight of
her than the actual pictures themselves. I'd seen them a hundred times.
It wasn't often enough that Scully was so openly delighted.

It was another ten minutes or so of her turning pages, gazing at the
photos, flipping back and forth, before she looked up at me. 
"Okay, there's three I like, but you've got to make the final
decision."

I half-shrugged, teasing her a little. "You just pick the one you like
best."

"Mulder! I'm not doing all of this for you! Come on." She caught my
wrist and tugged.

I wriggled closer again, deliberately placing my hands on hers as she
turned the pages. Her hands were so warm, so small but so strong. She
glanced up at me, a little surprised. What are you doing, Mulder?

I wasn't really sure myself. She was just so alive and beautiful. I
just wanted to touch her.

"All right," I said comfortably, "show me the top three."

One of her hands slipped out from under mine to indicate a photograph
on the left page, one of me at about nine months, in cloth diaper and
nothing else, sitting on a sheepskin rug. My eyes were wide, my hand
outstretched, my mouth half-forming a word. What was I trying to say? I
wondered.

"Why that one?"

"It's gorgeous, Mulder. And look at your eyes - they're so intense.
It's amazing."

I smiled. She was making this too easy for me. "Intense and gorgeous,
huh? I haven't changed a bit."

She glanced at me again, smiling widely. "Don't flatter yourself."

I gently caressed the back of her hand with my fingers, drawing her
attention back to the page. She turned over two pages, searching with
her fingers. They stopped on an image. Just me again, a little over a
year old, gazing at the camera over the top of an enormous, albeit
melting, icecream cone. The same wide-eyed gaze, icecream dripping from
my chubby face.

"That's number two..." she murmured. She turned several pages over
again, pointing to a faded shot of me at around two, still pudgy,
dressed in a checked shirt and overalls. My hair, in need of a cut, was
in all directions. I was wearing gumboots, and in my hand was a milking
pail. I was smiling, squinting a little in the bright sunlight. "And
number three," Scully finished, running her fingertips lightly over the
page. The fingernails caught my attention immediately. Always so
perfectly manicured - I don't know how she managed it. 

I took her hand in mine again, running my thumb and forefinger over the
nails, one at a time. She curled her fingers around mine, giving them a
quick squeeze, tracing my knuckles. It was so achingly beautiful, so
surreal, and yet there was no uncertainty, no insecurity, no fear that
she would pull away. 

With an almost inaudible sigh she relaxed against my shoulder. I
slipped my right arm around her shoulders, gently brushing her upper
arm, and I pressed a kiss against her temple, just above her ear, and
paused a moment with my eyes closed to breathe her in. Her left hand
twisted and her fingers slipped between mine, thumb caressing my palm.
It was slow, loving, not quite passionate but rather intense,
exquisite, overwhelmingly special but still so comfortable, so
familiar. 

I drew back a little, bringing her hand to my lips and then pointing
with it to the third picture. "This one."

"You like this one best?" 

"Yeah. You don't?"

"I liked the first one better, I think." She was playing with my
fingers, contented, teasing. I like this, Mulder.

"I don't think the whole Bureau really needs to see me with my shirt
off."

"Oh, so now you're going to get all modest?" 

I smiled. I like this too. "I'm not always?"

"Hardly."

I smiled, pushing the cushion from behind my back against the arm of
the couch and wriggling up, tugging her up beside me so that we were
both stretched out along the couch, legs entangled, propped up on the
pillow. She didn't comment, just resettled herself, bare feet brushing
my jeans leg as she drew her knees up, resting the album on them. The
most natural thing in the world.

"What about number two?" she asked.

"The icecream?"

"It's cute."

"Only cute, not gorgeous?" I asked innocently. 

"Now you're fishing."

I chuckled. Emboldened by her responses, I brushed my hand across her
stomach, thumb under the edge of her shirt. I didn't get any further,
though, before she caught my hand silently, bringing it back to the
album. Not there, yet, Mulder.

Sorry. I kissed her hair, a little subdued.

"What do you think, Mulder?" 

"Farmboy, icecream or nekkid? I don't know. I could always enter all
three. That could really confuse them."

"Mulder.." She was starting to get a little impatient, a little
unsettled. I was still going in the wrong direction.

"Let's go with icecream."

"You're sure?"

"Yeah."

She freed her left hand from mine and carefully peeled back the plastic
covering, then the photograph. Closing the album, she sat upright,
reaching to put it on the coffee table. She didn't stretch out beside
me again, but instead sat on the edge of the couch, feet on the floor.
That beautiful moment had ended.

I sat up, swinging my legs off the couch and sitting beside her,
mimicking her pose. She was still holding the photograph in her hands.
I caught her left hand and grasped it warmly, an apology. I'm sorry.

A few seconds silence. I drew a breath.

"This is important to you," I commented quietly.

She nodded. "I think women have the right to work and have kids."

"If you... had kids, you'd keep working?"

She thought it over. "It'd depend on the circumstances, I guess. If we
were still working together. If I was married, or not. If... Who the
father was."

I was wary of putting a foot wrong, but curious, too. "Say you and I
had a baby. What would you do then?"

She picked up on the game, a wistful sort of whimsy in her tone. "Are
we still working together?"

"Yeah."

"Are we living together?"

"That would be the usual thing, wouldn't it?"

"Are we married?"

"Maybe. Sure. Why not?"

"Is that a proposition, Mulder?"

I chuckled. "Would you like it to be?"

"Maybe." The word itself was playful but followed by a sudden, shaky
sigh. I slipped an arm around her shoulders and she squeezed my hand
tightly. "Mulder..." she whispered, broken. 

I drew her against me, my chest aching. This wasn't how I'd expected
the evening to end but I was hardly surprised. When Scully let that
tight reign on her emotions slacken, she let herself be vulnerable. "I
know."

I eased the photograph from her hand, putting it carefully on the
coffee table. Then I stretched out on the couch again, tugging her up
alongside me, wrapping my arms firmly around her. She sighed that shaky
sigh again.

"I'm tired."

There were so many things I wanted to say. You're beautiful. God,
you're so beautiful. Beautiful when you're happy and just as beautiful
when you're upset and confused. I never want to let you go, Scully. 
I wanted to cover her with praises and kisses, but I didn't. My answer
was gentle, simple. "It's all right. I've got you."

"Thank you," she murmured, fingers tightening around me arm before
relaxing again. 

"Comfortable?"

"Mmmhuh." She was already falling asleep, it sounded.

She hadn't answered the question about giving up work, I realised. We'd
gotten sidetracked. But I stayed silent, not wanting to bring it up.
She didn't even know the answer herself, I guessed. 

She shifted, curled up, her knees drawn up to her chest, and I reached
to touch one of her bare heels. The skin was rubbed red, starting to
blister. "You were right about the shoes."

"Huh?"

"They're starting to give you blisters."

"Hmph.." She was almost out of it. "I almost didn't get them. They're
not my usual style."

"Why did you get them, then?"

A yawn. "I thought you might like them."

"Don't think they're my size."

She thumped me tiredly for that. 

I smiled. "Sorry." I slipped my arms around her again. She was almost
asleep. I should stop teasing. "I like them," I promised. "I do."

"Good." Another yawn. "Goodnight, Mulder."

No 'I should go home' or 'Can I crash in your bed for the night?'. The
pair of us falling asleep curled up on my couch, as if it were nothing
out of the ordinary. I smiled. "'night, Scully."

I touched her hand and her fingers curled around mine. A sigh, and she
slipped into sleep, her body relaxing against me.

I reached up to switch off the lamp. The room fell dark and I lay
silently, listening to her breathing. I wasn't tired, yet. I could slip
away now, carry her to the bedroom and let her have the bed while I
slept on the couch. But I didn't. She'd wanted me to stay and I wanted
to be there.

I smiled to myself, feeling her heartbeat, her warmth, knowing her
breathing and her scent.

Yeah. I like this.


fin.


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