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Advantages of riding long distances in Dana Scully’s obscene SUV: it’s large, and comfortable, and the AC works. Disadvantages: to her, doing 75 on a 60 road is “conservative”. Mulder has spent so many years working so hard not to get pulled over, and it’s stuck with him more than he cares to admit. She has told him, often and in annoyance, that he drives like a grandma. It hurts him to think that she hasn’t put two and two together, hasn’t realized that this is another one of their many ghosts.
They’re on their way west, blazing along the highway through the skinniest point of Western Maryland, the part that hopes to secede from the DC suburbs, and into the West Virginia mountains. Strange things are afoot at Berkeley Springs and it has been determined that Scully and Mulder’s cocktail of brain and recklessness will do the job. They’ve still got it. He’s grateful for the vote of confidence from the powers that be, if he’s honest. Without this job he felt old, deflated, done. Without her by his side he very nearly went over the edge.
Now they’re back in the car. He hopes she hasn’t left her heart behind at home in DC. He definitely brought his, double checked that it was with him when she came to pick him up earlier. He prayed weakly for some sort of happiness for them as she honked her loud, obnoxious horn.
Her face is blank, curiously serene. He wonders what she’s thinking as she fiddles with the volume buttons on the high tech instrument panel. For a second, in his mind, they’re back in her red Taurus, sharing a can of iced tea on a stakeout, playing car games. It’s love without loving, and it’s enough for a long time.
“Hey, Scully.”
“Yeah?” She doesn’t look at him, which is good because the road is curvy, eighteen-wheelers changing lanes recklessly around them.
“I’ve got a game for you. ‘Your life as a movie title’.”
She tries to hide a smile but he knows, he knows it’s there. They were in Kansas City, Missouri, fall of nineteen ninety-nine. A case successfully wrapped and the two of them found themselves in a bar, where they’d played this game. Scully’s best title was “Redheads Gone Mild”. Mulder’s, “Don’t Tell Skinner The Vampire’s Dead”. He’d asked her if the redhead was always mild or if she’d gone mild, in which case, what was she before? She’d laughed. The night had ended with them somehow sitting all too close together, maybe cuddling a little. Maybe. In emails, later when they were apart, they’d ‘review’ their respective movies to say, ‘I miss you’. “Redheads Gone Mild 3 is terrible. Painful. You don’t want to see it, trust me.”
“Alright, you go first.”
He thinks about it for a second. “The Unbearable Lightness of Microgravity.”
He remembers nothing of his abduction besides a sucking pain in his stomach. Maybe that’s what it was? Microgravity? He’ll have to deal with this in therapy at some point. He’s very good at avoiding his psychiatrist’s calls.
"The Doctor Wishes She Wore Prada,” Scully says, dreamily.
“You mean this suit isn’t made to measure?” He allows himself a leer. He’s not sure innuendo suits him anymore, but tries it on for size. It’s weird. Their history has rendered all this obsolete. He knows exactly how she tastes. It is no joking matter, at all.
“Your turn,” she counters.
A beat of silence falls between them. Scully foots the gas and her muscle mobile roars up a steep and sharp curve.
"The Amazing True Story of Two Existentialist Buddy Cops In Love.”
She doesn’t respond for many long seconds, pretending to be focused on the road. They drive up a mountain, then back down, winding their way into the sunset. On a flat stretch in a valley, passing old steel mills and empty warehouses, she reaches over and puts her hand on his knee. Her fingers trace his patella and then skitter away to rest between their bodies.
"Well, we are cops. And I’ll admit to developing an existentialist streak in Honors Philosophy.”
Mulder chuckles. "Me too, me too. And the story is pretty amazing, and true.”
"Yeah.” She slips into silence again.
It hangs there between them, the third element of his title. Are we in love? Mulder places his hand over hers on the center console, curls his fingers around hers. They used to have this trick, back when they’d first run away together and words caught in their throats more often than they tumbled out. They let their bodies talk, a rudimentary code for the most important questions. For the base of the hierarchy of needs: food, air, shelter, love.
“Once for no, twice for yes, Scully.”
While she’s thinking, he makes two promises to himself. He'll do two things no matter her answer. Number one, he will put a stop to this sporadic, wordless, damaging sex they’ve been having. He will ask her to try to reconnect for real. He will ask her on a date. Number two, he won’t fuck it up this time.
He’s almost forgotten the question, the towns and mountains swishing by outside the window, when he feels her hand slip out of his. Her nails scrape the back of his hand lightly. His heart beats with something like hope. She gives his fingers one squeeze, and then one more.