From:             AudreyCats <AudreyCats@aol.com>
Date sent:        Sat, 28 Mar 1998 10:50:14 EST
Subject:          Coffee Talk (1/1)


Title -  Coffee Talk (1/1)
Author -  Dana Audrey
E-Mail address -  AudreyCats@aol.com
Rating - PG
Category - Story, MSR
Spoilers - Very vague ones for events through fifth season, nothing very
specific mentioned, though.
Keywords - Mulder/Scully Romance
Summary - Mulder and Scully talk a few things out over, of all things, coffee.
Pure fluff ahead.  You have been warned.

Disclaimer:  Look, if you were dumb enough to think they were mine, or to
think I thought they were mine, get out now...

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Coffee Talk (1/1)
by Dana Audrey

     Fox Mulder's sleepless night was interrupted by a knock at the door.  For
a brief moment his paranoia kicked in and asked him who in the world could be
up at this hour, but he shrugged it off as soon as he looked through the
peephole.  Standing just outside his apartment was a Dana Scully he thought he
had never seen before- hair tossled, no make-up, eyes red, sunken and dazed.
Instead of her usual conservative business suit was a pair of leggings and a
big, gray sweatshirt.  Her tennis shoes were untied and soggy from the rain.
     "Scully?"
     "Can I come in?"  Mulder made an open-armed gesture, inviting the woman
inside.
     "What's wrong?"  She shook her head.
     "Do you have any coffee?"
     "Yeah... in the kitchen cabinet."  Scully waddled over to his kitchen
absent-mindedly.
     "Scully?"
     "Hmm?" she responded with detached interest as she opened the can and
poured some into his coffee machine.
     "You okay?"
     "Sure, Mulder.  I'm fine."
     "You sure?"
     "Why the hell wouldn't I be?  Jesus, Mulder, you're annoying as hell
tonight."  The icy tone underlying his partner's words would have fooled just
about anyone who hadn't seen her through nearly every human emotion known to
mankind.  Mulder, however, saw the jittery hands and flittering eyelids as
signs she was definitely less than 'fine'.
     "So is coming over to my place at three in the morning going to become a
habit, or should I be worried?"
     Hands on hips, Scully turned to face him.
     "We need to talk."
     "I'll bet we do."
     "And I could do without the sarcasm for now."  She glared at him while
waiting for the machine to produce her necessary caffeine.  "Got it?"  Mulder
nodded.  Was it something he had done?  He didn't think so.  He hadn't done
much of anything in the past few weeks, and Scully's tone said otherwise.  But
then what?
     The mandatory minutes passed, Scully picked up her mug, and Mulder
followed her to his couch.  He waited patiently.  After a few minutes, though,
he got tired of watching her sip her coffee silently and ventured a question.
     "So what do we need to talk about?"
     "Us."
     "Us?"
     "Us."
     "Would you mind elaborating a little on that?"  Scully took a deep
breath.  Then another.  She put her mug down on the coffee table and lifted
her chin, meeting his worried gaze.
     "I know you're used to not sleeping,"  she began slowly while her eyes
lingered over the countless magazines and video boxes in his living room, "and
I guess I've grown used to it as well.  But tonight- last night, I guess, I
woke up screaming.  Woke up.  Which means at some point in time I had to have
fallen asleep."
     Mulder could not for the life of him see where she was going with this,
but he nodded encouragingly.
     "You woke up screaming?"  She nodded while taking another sip of the
steaming liquid before her.
     "Mm-hmm.  It took me awhile before I could remember why, but I finally
did."
     "And?"
     "Do you have awhile?"  Mulder was floored.  Here she was, in the middle
of the night, obviously frightened or angry or whatever the hell she felt, and
now she asked if he had awhile? Amazing.  Rather than push the issue, though,
he nodded again.
     "I had a nightmare.  About you.  Me.  Us."  Scully's eyes were now freely
roaming the room, inspecting everything, it seemed, except the man beside her.
"We were on a case, in a warehouse somewhere in hick-ville.  Smokestacks,
barns, miles of fields, the whole thing.  Typical, when I think about it.
Anyway, we broke into the warehouse and started looking for the.. the..
clones, I think."
     "You think?"
     "I don't know.  Neither of us ever said anything about what we were
looking for, but somehow I just knew we were looking for clones.  I just
*knew*.  You know what I mean?"
     "Yeah.  There's a technical word for it I learned somewhere along the
way, but it escapes me at the moment."
     "So there we were, breaking into the warehouse, guns out, ready for
anything.  There wasn't much inside- some old grain, hay, a rusty tractor.
You heard something off to the right- a gun lock or something-, and as usual,
told me to go one way while you went off to wherever your fancy took you."
     "As usual?  Excuse me?"
     "Never mind.  Would you please let me finish?"  He shrugged.  "At any
rate, we split up, I checked out the upstairs, and found nothing except an old
bonfire.  I came back down and was shocked to find you with... you."
     "Me?"
     "There were two of you."
     "I thought you said these were clones, not Eddie Van Blundht's."
     "I asked for a break from the sarcasm, remember?"
     "Sorry."
     "They were clones, sent out to replace those they were cloned from, after
studying every aspect of their personality and daily life."
     "Gotcha.  Go on."
     "So I looked from you to you and back again, and you were both dressed
the same, except for the tie.  One of you had a green one and the other a blue
one.  But I couldn't remember which one you had been wearing before, so that
didn't help."
     "What did you do?"
     "I froze.  I didn't know what to do.  I remember thinking that I couldn't
cuff you both and take you down to the station to figure everything out-"
     "Why not?"
     "I don't know.  It was another of those things I just *knew*.  I can't
explain it."
     "So again I ask, what did you do?"  Scully continued while pretending not
to notice.
     "I started to ask you questions.  Both of you."
     "What did you ask?"
     "I asked you what your mother's name was, where you were born, what our
last case was.  Of course you both answered them correctly.  The clone had
spent its entire life watching yours, learning everything there was to know
about you.  And so I figured I had to ask something that only *you*, not
someone who knew everything about you, would know.  Something you had never
told anyone.  Not even me."
     Mulder noticed Scully's voice getting uneven, waivering with each new
word she spoke.  He had learned years ago that if he was ever concerned about
her, he had to keep it quiet or she'd smack him.  It was times like these that
tried his constitution harder than ever.
     "I... I... asked you..."  If he didn't know better, he could have sworn
he was seeing Scully cry.  Of course that couldn't be.  The woman who had sat
through an abduction, a recovery, cancer, and the works with detached
sensitivity was now crying over a nightmare?
     "I asked you if you loved me,"  she said quickly, finally exhaling when
she did.  "Mulder number one said no."  More tears were falling, and Mulder
stared at her as if his own heart were being torn out.  "Mulder number two
said of course he did, that he always had."  Scully turned her eyes toward him
in a silent pleading.  "I shot him."
     Silence plagued the room for a few more minutes before she continued.  "I
remember I was crying when you looked at me and asked how I knew.  I...  I...
I told you I knew you could never love me.  And then... you just walked out as
if nothing was wrong."  With that, her tear-streaked face looked up into his
eyes.  He was startled at the growing determination in those beautiful baby
blues.
     "Oh, Scully-"
     "Don't 'oh Scully' me. The dream wasn't half of what was bothering me."
For the second time that night, Mulder was astounded the petite yet stubborn
woman he was blessed with calling his partner.  That dream would sure as hell
have disturbed him.
     "So what was bothering you?"
     "You were."
     "What? I'm being blamed for being in one of *your* dreams, saying
something I would *never* say?"
     "What?"  Scully shook her head.  That one had caught her off-guard.
	"What What?"
	"What did you just say?"
     "I would never say I didn't love you."
     "What... But... No... I..."  Had he just said what she thought he had?
"Why not?"
     "Because as an officer of the law, I am obligated to tell the truth
whenever possible.  That particular statement, my dear, would be a lie."
Mulder inched closer on the couch until his face was directly in front of
hers.  He reached up and wiped away her tears with his thumb and forefinger.
Her hand found its way to cover his, and the look in her eyes was priceless.
     Normally, if Mulder had so much dared to be this mushy, she would have
slapped him.  She didn't need this kind of support from anyone.  She was Dana
Katherine I-Know-How-To-Handle-Pressure Scully.  But at this point, her
constitution was too weak to refuse any comfort from him.  Gingerly, she
nestled into his open arms and accepted the warm hug he was offering.
     "I woke up screaming,"  she said softly into the soft fabric of his
sweatshirt.  "I don't know why it scared me so much.  I- I- I always thought
that-"  But her whimper was cut short when Mulder lifted her chin and kissed
her for all he was worth.  So she had doubted his love, had she?  He would do
the best he could to wipe away any doubt that remained.  When she pulled away
and searched his eyes frantically, he knew he had accomplished his task.
     "Mulder?"
     "Hmm?"
     "Why the hell hasn't this come up before?"
	He threw his head back and laughed.  Now this was the Scully he knew.  
When
he thought about it, it made him laugh harder.  Here he had been afraid that
showing his feelings for her would change her beyond recognition, and now it
was what brought her back to him.
     "What's so funny?"
     "Tell you later."
     "Oh, no you don't.  Tell me now."
     "You know, Scully," he began, his voice noticeably dropping. "The real
reason this hasn't come up before is quite simple."
      He looked to the woman who was now carefully positioned on his lap for
her reaction, but found none.  She was busy intertwining her fingers with his,
until she finally looked up.
     "Okay, I'm bait,"  she responded with a sly smile.
     "You're just not my type."  She wasn't impressed.
     "Oh, really?"
     "Really."
     "Then what exactly *is* your type?"
     "Oh, you know... tall... blonde... bimbo."
     "Well in that case, Mulder, I have a confession to make as well."
     "I'm listening."
     "You're not really my type, either."
     "Oh no?  What type do *you* prefer?"
     "I don't know... short... skeptical... stupid..."
     "Well, then, Scully, I'd say we're about as meant for each other as they
get."  He kissed her again, and could feel her smile beneath him.  Her hands
moved to run through his hair, and she slid down to a reclining position under
him.  He pulled away, and stared into her eyes in a way that made her shiver
despite the weight now pressing on her.  He noticed that a huge smile was
creeping across her face.
     "Why are you so happy all of a sudden?"
     "Oh, nothing."
     "No, not nothing.  You know something you're not telling me.  What is
it?"
     "Well..."  she tried to act nonchalant and look around the room.  "That
wasn't the only dream I had, that's all."
     "No?"
     "No.  It was the last dream I had, but not the only one."  Her fingers
were now waving their way back up his arm.
     "Are you going to leave me hanging in suspense?"
     "Well, before my *nightmare*, I had this glorious dream.  It's really
hazy, but I remember a few things.  You were there, and so was I, and so were
Skinner-"
     "Skinner?!"
     "-and Krycek-"
     "You've got to be kidding me, Scully.  And you don't call *this* one a
nightmare?"
     "Would you just listen a minute?"
     "Sorry.  Go on."
     "We were at a church, I think..."
     "Was Krycek in a coffin?"
     "No, sorry about that, he was alive and well."
     "Damn."
     "Anyway, I don't think it was a funeral.  Skinner was at the organ-"
     "Oh, this is a good one."
     "Would you let me get a word in edgewise?"  His eyebrows lifted in
agreement of her request.  "Thank you.  You were there, looking just heavenly
in a tux-"
     "Heavenly, eh?  You think I look heavenly in a tux?"
     "Shut up or I'll smack you silly."  As inviting as that indeed sounded to
him, Mulder obeyed and listened attentively.  "And I was there, too.  Except I
was wearing something *really* uncomfortable.  Apart from that, I don't
remember much."  The fingers that had been on his arm were now playing with
the dimple on his chin.  "So, Mr. Psychology Major, care to tell me what that
means?"
     He smiled affectionately at her and wondered how she could be so
devastatingly beautiful.
     "I'm stumped about the dream, but I can tell you one thing for sure."
     "And what's that?"
     "That you really shouldn't be sleeping alone for awhile.  Those
nightmares aren't good for you."
     "And that's your medical opinion?"
     "Based on pure scientific fact."
     "Well, in that case, I suppose I'll need to take the prescription, won't
I?"
     "Indeed you will."  He bent down to kiss her again, and he could hear the
girlish giggle come from underneath as she tried to speak against his lips.
He pulled away slightly to make her voice heard.
     "Mulder..."
     "Hmm?"
     "Don't you have a bed?"

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The End
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