Call It, Scully - illustrated

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Title : Call It, Scully
Author : Shawne
E-Mail : shawne@shawnex.freeservers.com
Rating : PG-13?
Category: SRH
Spoilers : small reference to "One Breath", cancer arc, "Emily".
Keywords : M/S UST
Summary : Scully steps out of character at three a.m. in the morning... and
who should she meet - by Chance? - but Mulder!!
Archive : As you please. Still, do tell me where so I can visit.
Disclaimers : How about making the odds 501 out of 1000? Heads, they belong
to Chris Carter. Tails, they belong to me. Come on... come on... damn!

Author's Notes : I wanted to write something less heavy-going than what I've
been doing, and I guess this qualifies. It's fluffy and sweet (I hope!),
with just the very mildest angst thrown in the middle. Thanks Toniann, for
beta-reading. Please write and tell me what you think.

======================================================

Salvation!

Thankfully, I dropped my armload of brown paper grocery bags onto the
wooden bench. Gratefully, I sank down next to them, entwining and stretching
my sore fingers till I heard my knuckles crack. Blissfully, I dropped my
head backwards, and closed my eyes.

It was three a.m. in the morning, and I had just gone grocery shopping.
This had to be a first for Special Agent Dana Scully, usually the epitome of
responsibility, organisation and painstaking neatness. I could hardly
believe it myself.

I hadn't realised that I'd allowed the cupboards to get quite as bare as
they did. The paperwork at the office was piling up now, and I regularly
worked long and erratic hours to keep up with it all. Most nights, I would
get home at half past nine, sometimes even ten. I'd grab something from my
dwindling supplies of food, then trudge in for a warm bath.

Tonight, I had reached home at eleven. Exhausted, I had dragged myself into
my bedroom, and just barely remembered to kick off my shoes before crawling
under my blankets and curling up into sleep. But the odd hours at the office
had turned my physiological clock inside out and upside down. At a quarter
past two, I had jolted awake, perfectly alert and bouncy. Oh, and hungry
too. Did I mention hungry?

Jumping out of bed with more energy than should even have existed in my
body, I practically hopped into the kitchen, only to find that my
refrigerator held the same things I figured Mulder's usually does. Nothing.
Or more accurately, nothing I should feel safe about putting inside my body.

The milk had spoilt days ago, and was giving off a rancid smell I'd been
too distracted to notice before. I didn't even have cold cuts anymore. Just
milk, and a frozen-stiff loaf of rye bread. Oh, and a piece of congealed
once-cheese pizza I'd brought home after work about two weeks ago.

This was disconcerting, to say the least. I had been ravenous, but the
contents of my freezer box were appalling. Chunks of dirty white ice had
caked themselves around a box of pencils, medium-dark. I couldn't even
recall what confused state of mind I must have been in to have put that in
there!

So I'd taken stock of the situation, and weighed my options. I could go
back to sleep - impossible, because the adrenaline pounding through my body
was making me bounce up and down, almost - or I could go and get something
to eat. Obviously, I cast the deciding vote for the latter.

Normally I would have done my shopping at the little grocer's shop just
down the street from my apartment. But unlike hyperactive F.B.I. agents with
no real lives, grocers slept at night and worked during the day. I had had
to walk about five blocks to get to the nearest all-night supermarket.

And so here I was, with bags and bags of stuff - not just food, because I
had decided that since I was here, I might as well get all my shopping done
at once - and still a good four blocks from home. My arms were already
killing me, and my appetite had growled to a halt after I'd inhaled that
chocolate bar at the check-out counter.

So here I was. With bags piled up around me, three huge ones to be exact,
and four blocks separating me from my home. Suddenly, it was a distance
comparable to a marathon, and I groaned.

"Trouble, Scully?"

Mulder?

My heart skipped about twenty beats ahead of itself, then started pounding
manically. So this was a dream. I'd completely hallucinated about waking up,
checking my kitchen, bouncing to the supermarket, trudging back, collapsing
here.... Now I recognised the pattern of the dream. It was one of those
where I'd be doing something completely mundane and boring, and then Mulder
would suddenly appear out of nowhere, dressed in a gleaming white tuxedo,
and whisk me away.

OK, I'd had enough of these dreams before. I could handle them. In fact, I
loved them.

Opening my eyes, I expected to look up into an appropriately romantic
starry night sky. Instead, I saw a huge face looming dangerously close to my
own, the hazel-coloured eyes sparkling with an insane light. I swallowed a
scream. Maybe this was the kind of dream where I thought I heard Mulder
calling me... and woke up to a monster instead.

"Something wrong?" A huge set of white teeth gnashed before my eyes, and I
almost squealed. But my restraint, even in dreams, is legendary, and
something I'm very proud of. I turned around instead, and my jaw dropped
open.

"Hey!" I cried, before I could stop myself. "Where's the tux?"

"Tux?" Mulder (for this was, indeed, Mulder) looked me up and down
worriedly, taking in my hasty change of clothes and hardly-combed-at-all
hair. "Scully, are you OK?"

I couldn't say anything. My mouth was still locked in 'moron' mode, and I
snapped it shut. Just a moment ago, I'd almost convinced myself this was a
dream. Clearly, it wasn't. Mulder wore a lot of things (and on some
especially special nights, not a lot of things at all) in my dreams, but
definitely not a ratty sweatsuit, soaked in sweat and fraying at the edges.

The blush crept its way up my neck, then slid right past my cheeks and over
my entire face. "I'm fine, Mulder."

"I can't believe I'm meeting you here! Did you go shopping?" His eyes
danced with a mischievous humour, and I could feel the flush starting to
conquer my brain as well. "At this hour?"

"Uh..." I choked out brilliantly. "Uh... you, you know how late I stay back
in the office sometimes!" The words came out in a defensive rush, as I tried
to explain my being here when I should be asleep, dreaming of... never mind.

"You got back at two today, huh?" He smiled, and even with the sweat
painted on his brow, he looked pretty good.

Stumped for an answer, I decided not to tell him what had really happened.
I would just look like an incompetent idiot, even more so than I did now. So
I masterfully changed the subject.

"What are you doing here?" I shot back, oh so masterfully.

"I went jogging," he replied flippantly, brushing a stray lock of deep
brown hair out of his eyes.

How could he make something so obviously deranged sound normal? This
conversation was definitely not going my way at all.

"At this hour?" I mimicked him as the best alternative to stuttering
through anything original which might choose to come from my head... and in
the process discovering that having huge gaping holes open in the ground was
actually my greatest desire.

"It's quiet, and there are a lot less joggers vying for the same sidewalk
at three in the morning."

His quick, confident answer once again yanked more ground out from under my
feet. In my case, excess energy obviously did not compensate for the
lethargy of brain cells.

"So this..." I waved my hand vaguely at him, then at me, and then widened
the sweep to encompass the bench and my groceries. "This meeting wasn't
intentional?"

He laughed easily, and I realised that I still loved the sound of that as
much as I had the first time I'd had the chance to hear it. "Of course not.
If I didn't know better, I'd say that you were the one stalking me."

I forced an uneasy - and I hoped, derisive - laugh. "Just doing my
shopping, Mulder."

"Well, it must be pretty urgent shopping to have taken you so many blocks
out of your way." He walked around from behind the bench, and dropped
himself easily down on it.

"Guess you could say that."

"You really don't believe in Chance, do you, Scully?" Suddenly, the tone of
his voice changed, from light to heavy. His eyes bored into mine, hazel
deepening almost into brown in his intensity.

"I'm not sure," I finally said, squeezing myself down onto the bench
between him and the bags. Trying to keep the mood light, I smiled, sort of,
at him. "How can I be sure you didn't put a video camera in my bedroom,
watch me leave the house, then come jogging out to look for me?"

I laughed, and waited for him to join in. This would be like our usual
banter, comfortable and practiced, so smoothly executed it seemed rehearsed.
I enjoyed it, and after several false starts on my part in this
conversation, was looking forward to it.

He didn't laugh. Instead, he glanced at me, then leaned back thoughtfully,
watching the quiet street. "You're right, Scully. How can you be sure?"

"Mulder, I was making a joke. You know, the kind of thing one usually does
to lighten the atmosphere."

"I know, Scully." He forced a half-hearted smile.

OK, if this wasn't the worst conversation in the history of the world, it
would have to be a close second. He'd been cheerful and sociable just five
minutes ago. Now he was pensive and depressing.

"What's up, Mulder?"

"Nothing."

I stared at him, with my favourite
'I-know-you're-lying-and-it's-no-use-saying-otherwise' glare. I prepared to
lift my eyebrow skeptically as well. If these two weapons didn't break
through Mulder's defenses, I might as well throw in the towel and try to
struggle home with my shopping.

"Nothing." Eyebrow. "Really."

"Look, Mulder, we met by accident, OK? I was kidding." This felt different,
somehow, my apologising to Mulder for a poorly-timed joke rather than the
other way around. And it felt even more peculiar, given that we were sitting
on a wooden bench in the cold night air at ten past three in the morning,
four blocks from my apartment.

"Yeah, Scully, I get it." He stood up abruptly, and reached around me to
grab one of my jammed bags. "Come on, I'll help you with these."

"No, Mulder." I surprised myself by my vehemence, and I grabbed the sleeve
of his sweatshirt. "Sit down."

He hesitated, and I could just feel his feet shuffling nervously near mine,
deliberating about whether to bolt or to obey. "Sit down, Mulder."

Somewhat meekly, he sat, the bag still clutched in his arms. "Hey, what's
this, Scully?" he immediately asked, mock cheerfully, as he poked around
aimlessly in the top of the bag. "Are these Twinkies? You eat Twinkies,
Scully?"

"Mulder, talk. Don't change the subject."

"Geez, Scully, it's late," he muttered. "Maybe..."

"Yes, Mulder, it's late, and we should be getting home. But not until you
tell me what's bugging you." It wasn't like me to be quite so forthright,
but I wasn't really myself today. For one thing, I wasn't usually bouncing
around alone in the streets at this hour, much less for something sensible
like groceries.

His hand had frozen around a package of Twinkies, but now it drooped
weakly, and he released them. I saw his face tighten, his eyes change
shades... then he looked up directly at me.

"Scully, do you believe in Chance?"

"Are we back here again, Mulder?" I asked, puzzled, unsure about where this
was headed.

"Do you?" His voice seemed to take on a quiet urgency, and I watched as he
lowered the bag he was holding to the ground.

"Well, I... I suppose so. I don't know."

"You don't, Scully," he spoke slowly, surely. "I think you don't. You've
stopped believing in it."

I opened my mouth, then closed it. Opened it again, and finally managed,
"Mulder, what is this to you? Why should my belief in...?"

"It makes you blame yourself, Scully. You don't believe that something
could just happen anymore, for no reason other than Chance." His voice was
low, unusually tense.

"Mulder, I still don't know why this is such a big deal. I've never been
one to believe in Chance; it's not rational."

"But working with me has confirmed that, hasn't it?"

I sighed. This was beginning to make sense. "Mulder, in a way, you're
right."

Instead of being appeased by my admission, he looked even more crushed, and
dropped his face into his hands.

"If I ever believed in Chance, Mulder, you're right. I stopped counting on
it, using it as an excuse, when I met you."

He still refused to look at me, or even respond with a grunt. So I kept
talking, trying to fill the silent spaces with my words.

"When I got taken four years ago, Mulder... when I came back, and when I
found that I had been infected with cancer... when I met Emily... when I
lost her..." My voice tore, but I continued. "I had to stop thinking that it
was random. I couldn't let myself believe that all those things happened to
me - for no reason."

"Those things happened to you because of me, Scully. Why don't you just say
it." Bitterly, he looked up at last, and I noticed tears beginning to form
in his eyes. I saw his soul tearing.

"They didn't happen because of you, Mulder." I wanted to hold him, and to
tell him that he was wrong. But I couldn't, because I knew he would not let
me, not until he understood. "They happened because I chose to be with you."

"What's the difference, Scully?" he snapped. "Stop sugar-coating the
truth."

"Mulder, maybe I don't believe in Chance. But there's always Fate, and
that's inescapable." Once again, I received no indication of comprehension
from Mulder, so I went on. "There's a reason that I don't subscribe to the
idea of Chance, Mulder, one that's greater than getting taken, or having
cancer, or losing Emily."

He glanced up again, and I saw a flicker of hopeful interest move across
his face. "What?"

"I..." My face coloured. "If I believed in Chance, Mulder, then I would
have to believe that I wasn't necessarily meant to meet you. That it was all
random. That you could have been waiting for anyone in your office that day
I met you. That we weren't meant to be together, working on the X-Files." I
frowned, and realised my mistake. "Even if we don't have them anymore."

"So all this..." He straightened up, and threw out his arm to indicate our
surroundings. "All this was meant to be? You and me?"

"You and me." I smiled, and took his hand in mine.

He squeezed my hand thankfully, and returned my smile with a wide grin. I
had not known, or even noticed, that Mulder blamed himself for some of my
beliefs. In a way, he had changed them, had made me realise that some things
just weren't worth explaining through Science. Like Fate, like connections,
like tonight. And in another way, he had fit in so closely with what I
believed in - not his theories of the paranormal, because we still ran in
opposite directions on those... but his desire for some kind of truth in
this world.

"Even tonight?" If I didn't know better, I would have sworn Mulder was on
some kind of PMS rollercoaster. Now, he half-smirked at me, a typical saucy
gleam returning to his eye. "You like this..." He pointed at my crumpled
T-shirt and faded jeans. "And me like this?" The sweatsuit needed no further
indication.

"Well..." I wrinkled my nose in mock distaste. "Maybe not tonight. You go
have a shower, and we'll talk then."

Finally, Mulder smiled to himself, and rose to his feet. His hand reached
for mine again, and he pulled me up and straight into his arms. Shocked, I
found that I couldn't move a single muscle.

Not that I would want to.

"Scully..." He paused dramatically, looking down into my eyes. I could feel
my arms start to tingle as the instinctive stiffness in them melted away.
Grin. "Save me a Twinkie."

Laughing, I broke away from him, and playfully swatted him on the arm. "If
you want a Twinkie, you pay for it, buster."

"OK, OK." He bent down and picked up the bag he had placed on the floor.
"Let's get you home, Scully."

"Mulder, I'm fine," I protested, as I gathered up the other two bags and
awkwardly put out one hand for the one he was holding. "I can handle this.
You should go back home and get some sleep. Kersh wants expense reports
tomorrow."

He made a face, but refused to relinquish the bag in his grasp. Instead, he
dipped his body into an exaggerated gentleman's bow. "I insist, fair lady."

"Seriously, Mulder, give me my groceries. If you send me home, you'll be
going really far out of your way." I was using my determined tone of voice,
one which he normally knew not to mess with.

"Scully, don't fight it. This was meant to be... remember?"

Now how did I know he was going to find some way to turn that around and
use it against me? I stifled an urge to grin, and set my bags down on the
bench, facing off with him. "I'm going to count to three, Mulder, then you'd
better give those Twinkies back to me and start jogging right back where you
came from. Or..." I allowed my words to trail off on an ominous note.

"Ah... an ultimatum," he murmured in a playfully sinister voice. "You're
awesome when you're threatening."

"Look, Mulder. Outstretched hand. Groceries I paid for. Give them back." I
stood with my right hand out, becoming slightly annoyed now. I didn't want
to cause the man any more trouble, couldn't he see that? He should really
just go home and rest.

"Scully, I won't be able to change your mind. Right?"

I nodded, glad that he knew me so well.

"And I'm not going to let you change mine. So..." He grinned again, the
pensive mood he had slipped into so easily a few minutes before now
effectively gone. He began feeling around in his clothes for something, and
my eyes narrowed suspiciously. He searched for a while, checking his pockets
and even inside his shoes.

Finally, he gave up his futile examination of every fold of his clothing
and every possible empty space in his footwear. "Do you have a quarter,
Scully?"

Confused, I dug into my jeans pocket and came up with a shiny new coin.
"What are you doing now, Mulder?"

"Since we're both refusing to give in," he explained grandly, as if he was
an authority on the subject, "I recommend that we leave this up to Chance."

He smiled at me. I couldn't keep from smiling back.

"Heads, you graciously allow me to escort both you and your groceries home,
so as to avoid hurting my fragile male ego." He took the coin out of my hand
and showed me the face he was referring to. "And tails, I pigheadedly insist
on trampling all over your feminist rights and issues, and walk you home
like the male chauvinist pig I am."

It took me a moment to realise that he wasn't really leaving anything to
Chance, and that I seemed to be on the losing end of this deal. No matter
what, he was going to get to walk me home.

"Call it, Scully," he told me, as he flipped the coin up into the air and
caught it deftly on the back of his hand, slamming his other hand over it.
"Heads... or tails?"

I hesitated. Then I smiled.

Somehow, I think I win either way.

======================================================

Added April 1, 1999