Summary: A birthday fic for Sybil. Mulder's there for Scully during 
her time of mourning.
Rated: PG-13 for language.
 
Untitled 
by MD1016 
 
 
 
"Let me drive you home." 
 
"No." Scully turned from him, from his soulful, concerned gaze, and fished her keys from her coat pocket, looking for some hint of normalcy in addition to the jingle of metal. 
 
"Will you please let me do something?!" His exasperation was sweet, but Scully couldn't handle being coddled. Not now. Not when he thought she actually needed it. 
 
She began down the steps towards the hospital parking lot. The cold breeze kicked up her hair from her neck, and she shivered. "Mulder, thanks, but I'm OK. I don't need you to feed me or drive me home, or hold my hand while I mourn my sister. I just want to go home and go to sleep." And cry alone, she added silently. 
 
He followed, matching her stride for stride. "Come on, Scully. You really think you'll be able to sleep?" 
 
"I haven't slept in almost 36 hours," she reminded him. 
 
"That isn't what I asked." 
 
She gave his a sideways look, and then sighed. No, she wouldn't sleep tonight. Exhausted as she was, Missy was gone and Scully carried not only grief but a burning sense of guilt. 
 
"Let me at least follow you back to your apartment," Mulder said. "We can do a sweep together and make sure there won't be any more surprises." 
 
With his reminder, realization ran like a frozen finger down her spine, and she stopped mid-stride. She hadn't been back to her place since it happened. There would still be a mess. 
 
"Not here," Mulder muttered, and tugged her arm, pulling her from the middle of the road and on to the sidewalk. "Listen. I know you need time to work things out. I know you need your space. I can respect that. I know what it means to lose a sister." His hand went to her shoulder, and she had to fight the urge to step away. Tears came instead, but she swallowed them down. 
 
"You don't have anything to prove to me, or anyone else," he told her. "I know you're strong. I know you can handle it. But you don't have to go through this alone. You're never alone, Scully. I'm always here for you. You know that, right?" 
 
"Mulder," she said on a sigh. 
 
"You want to keep working; OK, I can understand that. But tomorrow won't be just another day at the office, Scully. It'll be the first full day of your life that you won't have a sister. You can't pretend it away -" 
 
"That's not what I'm trying to do!" Why did he keep talking? 
 
"Come home with me," he urged, ignoring her sudden anger. "Let me ply you with pizza and ice cream. You can have my bed, and in the morning we'll try to pick up where we left off." 
 
"Food isn't going to make me feel any better," she told him. 
 
"Nothing will. Not for a while. But a full stomach will help you sleep. And, you need to sleep." 
 
She closed her eyes, too tired to continue to fight him. If the situation was reversed, she knew she'd never leave him alone. "If you're plying me with pizza, does that mean you're buying?" 
 
"Anything you want. My treat." 
 
***** 
 
His apartment looked just as it usually did; messy but not unclean. The light was on in the kitchen, and he stumbled into the dark living room to turned on the lamp on his desk like she'd seen him do a thousand times before. The apartment was cold because Mulder was cheap and didn't turn on the electric radiators until ice formed on the walls, but as she stood in the entryway she watched in amazement as he went to the thermostat and the heat kicked on. 
 
Tonight was different from all the other times she'd been here. 
 
"Take your coat?" he asked, pointing at her shoulder, his expression as nervous as it was quizzical. It was new for him, too. He wasn't used to taking care of other people. They were both out of their element. 
 
She let him slide the coat off, but the weight of it seemed to stay somehow. He hung it on the coat rack, and then went in to the kitchen. He pulled a whisky bottle from the cupboard, along with two juice glasses. 
 
"That's not going to make me feel any better," Scully told him. 
 
"It's to help us both relax," he said. "A little something to take the edge off." 
 
He went back into the living room and sat on the couch to pour them both a couple of fingers. "Are you going to come in?" He looked up expectantly. "You could shower, if you want, while I call for the pizza." 
 
"I don't have anything to wear," she said. 
 
"I'll find something." He waited, studying her, while Scully stared at the amber liquid on the coffee table. "Scully?" 
 
"What?" 
 
"You're still standing in the entry way." 
 
"I know." 
 
"Scully, what's going on?" 
 
"I don't know." 
 
He squinted at her, sucked on his lower lip while he considered her. "I'm going to turn on the shower for you. You look a little shocky. Maybe you need to warm up a little." 
 
He stood, and a wave of anxiety and panic gushed through Scully, and before she could stop herself she blurted out, "I don't know who to call." 
 
He froze. "What?" 
 
"Uh…" She covered her mouth, embarrassed to have said anything at all. When he stepped closer to her she took a couple of paces back. Her hands began to shake. "Nothing." 
 
"Scully," he cooed, and reached for her. She flinched as his fingers brushed her cheek. 
 
"Skinner said there are house cleaners that the Bureau uses, people who specialize in…crime scenes, and he asked, but I told him I would take care of it. I don't know why I said that because I don't know who to call, but I have to call someone. Don't I?" 
 
He nodded in understanding; offered her a warm, sad smile. "I'll take care of it." 
 
"But I should take care of it. I should know who to call." 
 
"We'll deal with it tomorrow," he assured her, and his warm palm slid down her neck to her shoulder. "Don't worry. We'll figure it out together." 
 
Tears spilled over her lashes then, and Scully found herself unable to stop them. Her chin quivered, her face crumbled. She tried to pull away, to hide the onslaught of emotion, but Mulder tugged her to him, and she was engulfed in his waiting arms. 
 
It was so easy to lean against him, as if they'd done it a hundred times. She wrapped her arms around his middle, her fists at his shoulder blades and her face buried in his chest. The crying didn't subside, though, it deepened until her breathes came in vocal gasps and the anguish swelled in her chest. He held her as her knees gave way, and then scooped her up and carried her to the couch, all the while 
shushing her and encouraging her release. 
 
"Let it all out," he whispered against her ear. He sat, and the leather cushions creaked beneath their combined weight. One of his hands ran in a comforting caress over her curled leg, while the other held her against him, allowed her to cry on his shoulder. "Shhh. It'll be OK. I'm here. I've got you." 
 
Her tears were salty against her lips, against the side of his neck, and the flicker of a fizzle bloomed in her belly as she began to suck them away. 
 
"Uh…Scully?" 
 
His hands were on her, and she sat curled across his lap, and the warmth of his solid body beneath her gave her a strange comfort she hadn't expected, hadn't even known she wanted. She could feel his pulse beneath her tongue; alive, alive alive… 
 
"Scully? What are you…?" 
 
She didn't want to talk, the words were too hard to deal with. No words, just comfort. Just her lips on his, her tongue in his mouth. She reached up and pulled his head closer, instantly deepening the kiss. And the excitement in her belly shot down to her groin when he responded with a groan. 
 
"No, Scully." He broke the kiss, his lips already red and slightly swollen. "We can't do this." 
 
The firm bulge in his pants seemed to say otherwise. "Oh, yes. Yes, we can." She couldn't take her eyes from his mouth. 
 
"No, we can't. This isn't right." He lifted her chin and forced her eyes to his. "Scully," he repeated. "We can't do this." 
 
"Oh, God." The realization of what she'd just done flooded through her, along with a good dose of humiliation. She's just stuck her tongue down her partner's throat. No, no, no! She never should've accepted his invitation, never should've let her guard down. But she was so weak, so terribly weak. 
 
"I'm so sorry." Tears came again, and she struggled to roll off his lap, but Mulder held her in place. 
 
"Hey, now. Calm down. We're OK. Everything's going to be OK." 
 
"No! Mulder, let go of me." 
 
"Scully, look at me." It was difficult to force herself to meet his gaze, but when she did she saw a raw tenderness in his eyes that tugged at her heart. "When we do this, Scully, it will be for the right reasons, not because you're upset and exhausted and we're both riding the downside of three days of adrenaline." 
 
Scully was overcome by the gentleness in his voice, and the care he took to brush a stand of hair from her face as he spoke. Fresh tears spilled down her face. "You gave up the tape because I asked you to. But it was for nothing. Missy was already gone." 
 
"It wasn't for nothing. If we hadn't given them the tape, you and I would still be fugitives. Our mothers would've suffered, and the X-Files would be lost. We would've lost everything –" 
 
"I would've had you," she whispered. "You would've had me." 
 
He pulled her back against him, and she laid her head in the curve of his neck. For a moment neither of them spoke. The radiator popped, and the fish tank gurgled. Scully found herself relaxing more and more in the safety of his embrace, the weary fatigue finally draining the last of her reserves. Her eyes slipped shut. 
 
"It wasn't for nothing." 
 
"Hmm?" 
 
"The tape," he said quietly. "You said I gave it up for nothing, but it wasn't for nothing." 
 
Scully lifted her head, sleepy and inquisitive. 
 
"It was for you," he told her. Then, he leaned to her and placed a soft, sweet kiss on her mouth. This time, though, it didn't go any farther. "We're exhausted. Let's get some food, and then some rest." 
 
***** 
 
His bedroom wasn't much of a surprise. Boxes of files and magazines and book stacked as high as Mulder could reach lined all four walls. His clothes spilled out of the open closet, and the mattress lay neglected on the floor in one corner with a phone and alarm clock beside it. 
 
There was a tall dresser near the bathroom door, and Mulder pulled out a pair of clean boxers and a t-shirt for Scully. "Do you need socks?" 
 
She shook her head, and accepted the clothes. "How do you sleep in here?" The room had all the charm of a storage shed. 
 
"Not bad. I'm usually asleep before I hit the pillow. Or," he added with a grin and a shrug, "I sleep on the couch. I don't have much company." 
 
"Really." She eyed the copies of Penthouse sticking out from under the mattress. 
 
"OK, now." He turned her towards the bathroom and gave her a playful push. "The towels are in the cabinet. Use whatever soap and shampoo you can find." 
 
She went, and took her time cleaning up. Tears came again, but she washed them away in the hot shower, down the drain where they couldn't betray her. The steam loosened her muscles and reminded her just how tired she really was. 
 
When she emerged wet-headed and barefoot into the chilly apartment, the smell of pepperoni and grease made her stomach rumble. She found Mulder on the couch, opening a piping hot box with an open bottle of Budweiser at his feet. 
 
"There you are," he greeted with a smile. "How many slices do you want?" 
 
She sat beside him, tucking a leg beneath her. "Let's start with one." 
 
"One slice? We've got a large to finish, Scully. You've got to do your part." He slipped a wedge on to a plate, collected the cheese strands, and handed it to her. "You want a beer?" 
 
"Yeah." Pizza and beer. Images from college nights flooded her mind's eye, and she grinned as she unscrewed the cap on the bottle. "I lost my virginity over a pepperoni pizza and a bottle of cheap beer." 
 
Mulder froze mid-bite, his eyes locked on her in shock. Well, maybe that was too much information for him, she decided. Too bad, really, because it was an entertaining story. She threw back a couple of swallows, and then went back to her pizza. 
 
"Prom night," he said, unsolicited. "In the woods behind the school gym. It took all of five minutes from beginning to end, and she looked at me afterwards with this incredulous expression and wanted to know if that was it." 
 
Scully snorted her amusement. 
 
"It wasn't, of course. We hadn't used anything. A month later she called out of the blue. Wanted to know if I wanted it." 
 
"Oh, my God." 
 
"That was basically my response, too. I was eighteen, leaving for Oxford. She didn't want it, either, so she aborted. Her mother said it was sensible, like they were talking about shoes, or something." 
 
"She told her mother?" 
 
He shrugged. "She had to get the money from somewhere." His face was dark, solemn, but it was a ghost he'd dealt with years ago. "It was a long time before I was with anyone again." 
 
Scully looked down at her pizza with less appeal than a moment before. His revelation explained the tapes she knew he watched, the 900 numbers she knew he called. The magazines under the bed. All commitment-free safe sex. 
 
How was it possible to know his so completely, and not truly see him? To have all the clues but no way to interpret them? She watched as he picked a piece of pepperoni from his slice, and then toss it on to the box top. He seemed to have lost his appetite, too. 
 
"I don't know why I just told you that," he said, frustration clear in his tone. With a thud he dropped his whole slice on the box. "Tonight is about you and your grief, not about my misspent youth." 
 
"Tonight is what we make it." She put her dinner beside his, and wiped her fingers on one of the paper napkins stacked on the table. 
 
He watched her from the other side of the couch. "That sounds like a beer commercial," he said lightly, and wagged his bottle at her. 
 
"You're a good man, Mulder. You made a mistake - a mistake that a lot of kids make, but you got caught -" 
 
"I really," he said with a self-conscious, nervous chortle. "I really don't want to have this conversation." 
 
"OK," she conceded. "OK." 
 
"Look, it's late. Let's just get some sleep." 
 
She nodded and stood. And held out her hand to him. 
 
"What?" he asked. 
 
"Let's get some sleep." 
 
His eyes dropped to her palm. "Not a good idea, Scully." 
 
"When it happens, Mulder, it will be for the right reasons, even if we're both upset and exhausted and riding the downside of three days of adrenaline. And if that's tonight then it's tonight." 
 
"And if it's not?" 
 
She shrugged. "Then it's not. And we'll deal with it tomorrow. Together." 
 
"I'm sorry about your sister," he said quietly, as he took her hand. 
 
She nodded, and then led him into the bedroom. 
 
 
 
End.