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Mulder stops himself, just outside of the car, and hangs his head, guilt and shame assaulting him in equal measure.
He can't leave off like that. Never mind that this isn't the moment for deep conversation, that she's absolutely right about him desperately needing sleep, that he's five minutes from being exhausted to the point of being incoherent. Never mind that she's supposed to be taking over this stakeout for him, that she needs to be sharp and able to focus, lest Tooms try to take her away from him for a second time.
Somehow or other, he's just managed to stick his foot in his mouth several times in the space of five minutes. He'd seen the way Scully had looked down, nervous, when she'd tried out his name for the first time. She'd clearly been terrified he would reject the familiarity, would push her away, and what had he done? Exactly what she'd feared, that's what. She'd tried again, undeterred, and instead of allowing himself to be moved by her declaration of loyalty, he'd played it off with a joke.
For the past week and a half, since getting out of quarantine, since returning to D.C., she's been distant and distracted. He'd assumed they'd moved too quickly, that maybe she hadn't been quite as ready for them to become intimate as she'd thought she'd been.
Now, after his reaction, he's thinking that maybe he's the one who isn't as ready as he'd thought.
With a sigh, Mulder throws open the car door and drops back down into the seat he'd vacated moments before, pulling the door shut behind him. Scully looks up from the radio dial in surprise.
"I lied, Scully," he says, before she even has the chance to ask what he's doing back so quickly. "My parents call me by my first name. So has every woman I've ever been involved with." She looks away.
"I know that, Mulder," she says quietly.
"You do?"
"Phoebe," she says. "I overheard the two of you talking in the office. She called you Fox." She risks a sidelong glance at him. "And one or two female agents from other departments have asked me how 'Fox' is doing, since I've started working with you."
"Scully, I promise, I haven't been with anyone else since you." She laughs.
"What, in the two weeks since what happened in the quarantine facility? I didn't think you had, Mulder."
"No... I mean since you were assigned to the X-Files, Scully. Since I kissed you in Oregon. I haven't been with anyone else."
"Mulder... it's not that I don't appreciate the sentiment, but... there was nothing going on, not then. I was with Ethan, and you... you were free to see whomever you wished."
"I'd say only one of those assertions is right," argues Mulder. "Yes, you were with Ethan... but I definitely wouldn't call what went on between us 'nothing,' and as long as I felt about you the way that I did- the way that I do- I was never going to be able to give any other woman my undivided attention." He grins. "Or my divided attention, really." Scully smiles softly into her lap. Even in the dim light inside the car, he can discern the blush on her cheeks. He reaches out and takes her chin, turning her to face him. "My not wanting you to use my first name isn't a reflection of how I feel about you." She nods, but still, she looks dubious. "Everyone who's ever called me Fox... either they're missing, they're dead, or they hate me."
"Your parents-"
"Can't stand the sight of me, Scully. Why do you think I never visit?" She looks incredibly sad at his words. "No, Scully, I'm not telling you this to make you feel sorry for me. I'm telling you this so maybe you'll understand why I reacted the way I did. I like that you call me Mulder. And I like calling you Scully. I feel like it's kind of our thing, you know?" She still looks skeptical. "Listen, if it really means that much to you, you can call me Fox. You can call me anything you want. If I've made you feel like maybe I don't-" He swallows. He's been dancing around this admission for months. At first because it wasn't appropriate, not when she'd been trying to work things out with someone else... and then, because he didn't think she'd been ready to hear it. But if she's sitting over there having doubts....
"Scully," he says, his voice soft, "I had a pretty good idea of what I felt for you very early on. The truth is... as much as it terrifies me... I'm in love with you, and I'm scared of anything messing that up, even something as small as a stupid superstition over my first name. But if it makes you feel like you're any less important to me than you are, then I'll get over it." Scully says nothing, only looks down, overwhelmed. The silence stretches on, and Mulder becomes more and more nervous. "Scully?" She doesn't look up. "Scully, what are you thinking?"
"I'm thinking...." She smiles softly down at her hands. "I'm thinking that I really should have brought you an iced tea." She looks up at him, tears sparkling in her eyes. "I love you too, Mulder. And I'll call you whatever you want me to call you."
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Fox Mulder and Dana Scully in love are two entirely new creatures.
The arguments over cases don't cease; if anything, they intensify, are carried home with them at the end of the day, the electric energy between them too powerful to be contained in the basement. When they reach an impasse, as they so often do, Scully is as likely to pounce on Mulder and kiss him as she is to throw her hands up and leave the room. The end result is that every single piece of evidence, every tiny, minuscule detail of the case, every witness statement, is picked over, discussed, and dissected from every possible angle, and because of that, absolutely nothing gets overlooked. Their solve rate, already impressive, goes up a notch or two.
"What'll we say if Skinner asks us what our secret is?" asks Mulder, sprawled over her bed, surrounded by the scattered file on Anthony Fiore and Michelle Bishop. They're supposed to be working on their report, but Scully's been having trouble concentrating since the moment Mulder had stripped off his shirt.
"Let's just hope he doesn't," says Scully, rescuing crime scene photographs that are about to spill onto the floor. "Our methods of communication aren't really the sort of thing we could teach a seminar on." Mulder reaches up and grabs her about the waist, pulling her down on top of him, sending the photographs flying. "Mulder!" She tries to twist away, but he holds her fast, pressing his lips to the hollow of her throat. "Can't you at least wait until we've cleaned all this up?"
"Nope," he responds. Moments later, transcripts of testimony and pages of Scully's neat notes have joined the photos on the floor, but by then, Scully finds she doesn't care all that much.
Scully is finding that the close confines of their basement office present a much more difficult problem. It had always been enough of a challenge for Scully to keep her hands to herself before, when her relationship with Ethan had rendered Mulder off-limits. Now, she's allowed to touch him as much as she wants- but not in the office, where professionalism reigns.
Or is supposed to, at any rate.
She reminds herself of this every time she brushes up against him on purpose, every time his hand on her shoulder lingers just a moment too long, every time she has the strong urge to push his chair back from his desk and simply drop into his lap. She reminds herself, again and again, of the listening device she'd once found in her pen. He's had the Gunmen sweep both of their apartments for bugs, but they can't bring them into the office to do the same there (nor would they ever agree to it; the idea of having their faces on cameras in the Hoover building would be enough to send all three running for the hills), and they'd be crazy not to assume the office is still bugged.
But even with all that... Scully can't stop herself from stealing the occasional quiet kiss, or from dropping notes on his desk, detailing what she has planned for later in the evening. She can't even bring herself to be embarrassed that Mulder has managed to reduce the serious Dr. Dana Scully, fabled Ice Queen of the basement, to passing notes like a lovelorn high school girl.
She's too busy having more fun than she's ever had in her life.
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They don't spend every night together, which is how Mulder comes to be alone in his apartment when he receives the phone call from Deep Throat, directing his attention to a seemingly-forgettable newscast. By the following morning, they're both poring over a tape of the scene where, supposedly, a high-speed police chase had ended with a suspect being shot, leaping into the water, and disappearing completely.
What follows is, initially, so completely typical for the two of them that they could almost be reading from a script by now: Scully insists there's no case here, Mulder disagrees, they investigate, they find that things are not quite what they seem, and eventually, they split up, each doing what they do best. Scully discovers her half of the evidence using careful scientific deduction, and Mulder discovers his half using instinct and blind hunches that just happen to lead him in the right direction (it's times like this that Scully finds it difficult not to use his hated nickname; the way he does this truly is spooky). They meet in the middle, combine their discoveries, and put the whole picture together, bit by bit.
It's just like every case they've investigated before.
Until, quite suddenly, it isn't.
Everything changes for Scully the moment Mulder is taken. She's never trusted Deep Throat before, has never kept her uneasiness about him a secret from Mulder, but now, she recognizes that she has no choice. She takes the fake ID he creates for her (trying not to worry about the fact that he's used her real name and not an alias), drives to Maryland, and does her level best to stride into the high containment facility at Fort Marlene like she belongs there. Her heart is in her throat when she is asked for a password before entering Cryology. Deep Throat has neglected to provide her with one. An accidental oversight? Or an intentional one? She glances at the alarm bell that she's sure will go off at any moment, at the video camera capturing her face, and forces herself to take a deep breath, to think. She remembers Dr. Berube's lab, the flask of red liquid, the label on the bottom... and at once, it comes to her.
"Purity control," she says, loudly and clearly, and the guard lets her through.
What she finds on the other side of the door changes everything.
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In some dim corner of her mind, Scully knows it's cold of her... but when the shot rings out, and Deep Throat falls, her first thought isn't for his welfare; it's for Mulder's. Will they take the evidence without giving him back to her? But by the time she's gotten out of the car, gun in hand, Mulder's been shoved out of the back of the van. She runs to him, her heart pounding in her ears.
"Mulder!" She crouches down next to him. "Mulder!" He groans, low in his throat, and she wants to sob with relief. She checks his pulse- it's weaker than she'd like, but it's there- and it's only then that she turns to Deep Throat.
She's never trusted the man, never understood Mulder's sometimes frustrating willingness to believe him, but the fact remains that he's provided her with information tonight that's saved her partner's life- quite likely trading his own in the process. She's prepared to do whatever it takes to save him, but she can see, the moment she pulls aside his jacket, that there's nothing she can do.
She lifts his head into her arms as his life drains away, as he imparts his final advice.
“Trust... no one.”
And with that, he’s gone.
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Scully wakes from a sound sleep at almost eleven-thirty at night. Looking around her room, she sees that Mulder, who had promised he'd be at her apartment by the time she went to bed, is still not there. Almost immediately, the phone rings, and it's him. And before she can even find out where he is, he imparts the devastating news.
The X-Files are gone. Shut down. Mulder was right: they've been looking for a reason, and now, apparently, they've found one. They're to be assigned- separately. For a long moment, she can barely breathe.
"You have to lodge a protest," she says. "They can't-"
"Yes, they can." His voice is alarmingly calm. This isn't right; they're threatening his work. He should be raging.
"What are you going to do?" she asks.
"I'm not going to give up," he says, and while the words themselves should cheer her, his flat, dead voice has the opposite effect. "I can't give up. Not as long as the truth is out there." There's a click, and the line goes dead. He's hung up without saying goodbye a hundred times before- they probably end most phone conversations that way- but this feels different, and Scully thinks she knows why.
"I'm not going to give up." That's what he'd said. Not, "We're not going to give up." He's leaving her out of this, cutting her loose. It's the ultimate ditch... and she's not going to let him get away with it. Not this time. She leaps out of bed and begins dressing. She's out the door in minutes.
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Mulder is lying in the dark on his couch when he hears the key turning in the lock. He's surprised: he'd known she would show up at some point, but he'd thought it wouldn't be until the morning. He doesn't move as she enters. He can see her silhouette in the dim blue glow of his fishtank, and he waits for her to turn on a light... but she doesn't. She crosses the living room and sits on the couch by his hip, not looking at him.
"I could have gone to the meeting with you and heard it from Skinner myself." He remains silent. "At the very least, you could have come over and told me in person."
"I just wanted to come home," he says. Even in the dark, he can see the angry set of her jaw.
"Then I could have met you here," she says.
"I wanted to be alone," he says brusquely. "I was alone when I started working on the X-Files. Seems fitting that I should be alone at the end, as well." Her eyes narrow.
"You're trying to push me away," she says. "It won't work, Mulder." He sits up abruptly, swinging his legs around her.
"You're goddamn right I'm pushing you away, Scully," he says. "I may be a joke at the bureau already, but you don't have to be. This is your chance, Scully. As long as you're associated with me, you'll never be taken seriously... but on your own, away from me, the sky's the limit for you." He turns to face her. "This was never supposed to be a permanent assignment for you, Scully. You were always destined for bigger and better things."
"What about what I want, Mulder?" she asks. "Isn't what I want for myself at least as important as what you want for me?" She shakes her head. "I'll be the first to admit that when I was assigned to work with you, I didn't think it would last very long. I thought I was the worst possible fit for the job, the wrong choice to be working with you... but I was wrong, Mulder. You and I are so different, it's true, but for us, those differences are a strength, not a weakness. I sincerely doubt any two agents in the entire FBI could possibly complement one another as well as you and I do. How else do you explain our solve rate?"
"Yeah, but Scully," Mulder says, "you're ignoring the fact that you're not assigned to work with me anymore." Scully gives him a shrewd look, one he is all too familiar with. I see right through you, that look says.
"Forgive me if I'm wrong, Mulder," she says, "but from what you said on the phone, I was under the impression that whatever investigations you plan to conduct, from here on out, are not going to be officially sanctioned by the FBI." He nods grudgingly. "So the only person who could possibly stop me from working with you... is you."
"It's too dangerous, Scully," Mulder argues. "Wherever I go on this from here, whatever I do, it's going to be without the protection of the bureau."
"Which is why it's even more important that I'm with you," insists Scully. "No offense, Mulder, but you suck at keeping yourself out of trouble." He can't help but grin at that, and she returns his smile briefly... but then her face becomes earnest again. "Mulder, the men Deep Throat described to me, while we were waiting to make the trade for you... these are dangerous men, with power that reaches into every corner of the government. They murdered a doctor and her family to cover up evidence, and I don't hesitate to believe they've done much worse than that. They have to be stopped, Mulder... and Deep Throat said we're the only ones who can expose them." She reaches for his hand and moves closer to him, so that their legs are touching. "When I said I was 'all in,' Mulder, I wasn't just talking about being with you. It's just like you told me: whatever you need, I'm there." She cups his cheek and rests his forehead against hers. "I know you're used to being alone... but Mulder, you don't have to be alone anymore. I'm here now, and I'm not going anywhere. No matter how hard you try to make me."
Something releases in Mulder's chest, and for a moment, he thinks he may cry. But instead, he grins at her.
"I should have known you're too stubborn to be scared off so easily," he says, and she laughs.
"At last, you're learning." She stands, pulling him up by the hand. "Come on," she says. "You're sleeping in your bed tonight, not on the couch."
"As long as you stay with me," he says, allowing her to lead him to his bedroom. She smiles and kisses him.
"Always," she says. "You're not getting rid of me."
Whatever happens, whatever horrors they face, whatever truths they discover, they'll face it together.