Laughter
by Kat

Its not like our job provides a lot of light moments.

There is nothing really amusing about vampires and serial killers and wolfmen and killer cats and (especially) lung infesting tobacco beetles.

But sometimes she laughs.

This job is especially unamusing if you are a woman trying to break into the biggest boy’s club in America. Too much laughter from a woman would get you pegged as an airhead or a lightweight. She had to pretend to be unflappable.. She reminded me at times of a teenager in her first pair of high heels, trying desperately to ignore trembling knees and weak ankles and maintain an air of sophistication. Trying to balance her mission of ‘reining in Mr. Spooky’ against the supernatural phenomena she was seeing on our cases. The only laughter she was dealing with then were others laughing at me, and by extension, laughing at her. Mrs. Spooky. Nothing much to chuckle about.

But now sometimes she laughs.

I honestly look back on the first year of our partnership with the same nostalgia that an adult looks back on summer camp as a kid. I know it may be hard to believe that a liver eating psychopath and a brain eating worm could be part of warm and fuzzy memories, but I guess time has a way of softening out the edges. Things just seemed less complicated then. My view of the world less complicated; our relationship was less complicated......

Our relationship. When I retire from the FBI one day, I am going to bring all of my psychological training to bear on our relationship and write a dissertation. I’ll make millions on the lecture circuit at all the major universities. It will be a textbook case in every psych book in the country.. I even have the title picked out: “Romantic/Platonic Relationships in the Workforce: A Case History.”

Anyway, I digress. What I am trying to say is that since the start of our partnership we have been through pretty much every conceivable emotional scenario on the scale, and the only thing that still startles me is her laugh. Not her sad smiles or her wry grins, but her laugh.

It is not what you would expect from her. It is complete girlish glee, unadulterated happiness in its purest form. It makes her look different, sound different. When I hear it I can suddenly imagine her as a little girl playing hopscotch or holding dolls or any of the other childhood activities that seem so hard to imagine her doing most of the time.

She only laughs when we are alone. Can’t let down the ‘game face’ in front of others. I have come to realize that if she walked into the office one day and stripped off all her clothes, it would not be a more intimate act for her then letting me see behind her mask of inscrutability.

Her laugh always seems to be a signpost of good things to come. The night that she wagged the Bureau credit card in front of my face with her mischievous giggle was a case in point. We commandeered one of the limos, found the most expensive restaurant in town, and ordered every expensive item on the menu. Twice. We even discussed the movie. I found it a lot more amusing in retrospect, probably due to large quantities of champagne.

The next week we were back in DC in a meeting. She was discussing the forensic evidence on our latest case. I tried to merge the serious, controlled woman sitting across from me with the giggling, flushed woman I had dinner with the week before. I almost couldn’t.

Near the end of the meeting some accountant type gave us a little lecture on "unnecessary charges on the Bureau card". The Bureau does not itemize charges so there was no knowledge of what it had been used for, but Mr. Number Cruncher said that the total for the month had seemed "excessive". Skinner turned red all the way to the top of his bald head.

Scully kept her usual serious, slightly bored face on until we reached the elevator. The two of us got in alone.

Sometimes she laughs. A lot.

The End