TITLE:  Frohike's List
AUTHOR:  A. Kelley Nolan
EMAIL:  akelleynolan@yahoo.com
DISTRIBUTION:  Wherever.  Just let me know.

RATING:  R for language
CATEGORIES:  VR
KEYWORDS:  Mulder/Scully romance, Frohike POV
SPOILERS:  None

SUMMARY:  You can't fool Frohike.

Disclaimer:  Everybody in this belongs to somebody else.

*********************

In the end, it wasn't really surprising that Frohike was the first to 
find them out. He kept a closer eye on Scully than anybody except 
Mulder, and so he'd noticed when something was different. Of course, 
when neither one of them would talk, he wished he'd noticed a lot 
sooner. He'd seen them. He should have spotted it. But to be fair to 
himself, he hadn't seen them together, and that was the whole key to 
catching their vibe. Mulder on his own could be paranormally cool, and 
the enigma that was Scully could only exist in a vacuum of Mulderless 
space.

When he saw them together, for the first time in weeks, he knew right 
away that something was up. It was subtle, like a tiny wobble in a 
planetary orbit that tells you there's a fucking huge black hole 
around. Eyes narrowed, he watched them closely for signs of crisis, 
running down his mental checklist of expected behaviors.

Cold inflexibility in either party? Negative. That was a relief. These 
encounters were exhausting for everybody when they were like that. He 
could remember times when they couldn't even look at each other and 
just stood wrapped in blankets of glass, so that everybody else in the 
room was afraid they would shatter if you brushed against them too 
hard. When it was only one of them, it was even worse. When a hot 
glint came into Scully's eyes and her jaw tightened and Mulder's 
desperation filled the room like the scent of fear. When Mulder leaned 
back against a counter, like he was lounging, but his hands gripping 
the edge and his eyes looking anywhere but her as she sought his gaze 
again and again, and a black hint of violence coiled in him like a 
spring. Those were bad times they hadn't seen in a while, and he hoped 
they wouldn't see again. It was like watching people fuck, and not in 
a good way.

Incessant cajoling and/or denial? Not this time, and that was a little 
weird. He watched them a minute, their heads bent together in a quiet, 
earnest conversation. They seemed to be on the same page on this one. 
Not even disagreeing about the why, just discussing the how. It wasn't 
totally out of left field, but it was just barely within the 
tolerances, as far as his mental list went. He planted a little red 
flag on that fact and moved on.

Total disregard for personal space? Check. As always, except in the 
really bad times, Mulder stood so close to her you'd think he grew up 
in Mumbai rather than Martha's Vineyard, and his head was bent down 
toward hers so that their faces were only inches apart as they spoke. 
How the hell did they do that? he wondered. Apart from giving them 
both a crick in the neck, they weren't even far enough apart to focus 
on each other's faces. Why didn't their eyes dart back and forth like 
they were chasing fireflies? And didn't they get tired of breathing 
each other's used breath? Apparently not. He indulged in a little 
fantasy of Scully puffs against his skin, but quickly shook himself 
out of it to pursue the what-is-upness at hand.

Mulder touching her way too goddamn much? Check. They had walked in 
the door with his hand on her back, and as he made points or tried to 
get her attention he touched her arm, her shoulder. He even tucked her 
hair back behind her ear, almost absently, when it fell forward as she 
was peering through a microscope. Frohike's breath stuck in his throat 
at that one. To be allowed to touch her with impunity would be 
incredible enough, but to actually feel that lovely coppery hair - 
which Mulder couldn't even properly appreciate with his freaky color 
blind eyes, damn it - would be like a benediction from the Blessed 
Virgin...well, from the Blessed Scully, anyway. He wondered if she'd 
let him get away with it if he was taller, or if he looked that good 
in Armani.

Possessive eye behavior? Check. Mulder always silently checked with 
her when he heard something new or before he said something. He didn't 
stare at her as much as he used to. Back in the early days, his eyes 
would follow her everywhere she went, sometimes with an expression of 
naked longing in them. Now he mostly indulged himself when he knew she 
was looking, letting his eyes linger on her like they were sharing a 
secret.  Frohike figured that by now he knew exactly where she was in 
space at any given moment, a sort of very specific, Scully-based 
clairvoyance.  Scully hadn't kicked the habit, hadn't ever even tried, 
as far as he could tell.  He watched her gaze follow Mulder as he 
moved across the room, appraisingly, appreciatively.  She had always 
done that, and he wondered if Mulder was even aware of it.  He was 
pretty sure if he was being checked out by Scully, every hair - and 
everything else - on his body would be at attention.

Frohike was stumped.  Everything seemed to be as close to normal as 
these two ever were.  They weren't doing anything overtly weird, but 
the vibe was off.  He could feel that wobble in the air.  So where was 
the damn black hole?

He sat back to watch for a while.  He figured Scully would give him 
the clue he needed.  He'd studied her.  He knew her face, knew her 
body language.  He knew Mulder's much better, and it was much more 
obvious, but Mulder wasn't easy to predict around Scully.  Scully had 
spent years maintaining her composure around her partner, at least 
when Frohike could see it, but she'd let the act slip quite a bit in 
the last year or so.  She wasn't exactly loose, but she wasn't 
guarded, either, and when she wasn't guarded she was an open book.  
He could understand why she'd watched herself so closely all those 
years.

He mentally took out a pencil to add some more tidbits to the list.  
While Byers and Langly were working on some geek shit, Mulder and 
Scully were off to one side, and it didn't look like they were talking 
about satellite vectors.  Their voices were low, inaudible to anyone 
else.  Of course, it was all being picked up by the ambient mic, and 
they'd certainly listen to it later, but for now he had to make do 
with the visual.  No closed captioning needed to tell it was a private 
conversation.  Red alert!  What the fuck was this?  Mulder's 
expression was (for him) animated.  Did he just wiggle his eyebrows?  
Scully flashed him a smile that was totally devoid of teasing or 
sarcasm or weariness, something Frohike'd seen her do maybe once.  He 
had no doubt she did it, but he really wasn't in a position to see 
her...what was this?  Happy?  That's certainly what it looked like.  
He started to get an inkling.

Byers rushed over with some techno coolness to show them.  He pushed 
it across the table toward them, and Mulder and Scully turned away 
from Frohike to look at it.  Scully put her hand on Mulder's back for 
balance as she leaned forward, then let it slide down his spine to 
come to rest at the small of his back.  There was no ripple of tensing 
muscles from Mulder, no flinching, no curving into her touch, and that 
was when Frohike knew that Scully had given him his answer.

"Holy shit!" he yelped.  "You're sleeping together!"

He hoped the video capture of the next bit was good.  Mulder's head 
snapped up like somebody'd yanked a string.  Byers and Langly stared 
at him like he'd gone off his rocker, then swiveled in unison to look 
at the agents, Byers with a thoughtful expression, Langly with a grin.  
Scully was totally unruffled.  She looked over at Frohike with an 
expression of mingled amusement and interest, a ghost of a smile on 
her lips.  A thick, heavy silence fell over the room.

Mulder was the first to speak.  "What?" he asked, in a voice that was 
much too high to be convincingly casual.

"You dog!" Langly crowed, and Mulder was too busy staring at Frohike 
to even shoot him a glare.

"Frohike..."  Byers tried to say something reasonable and soothing, 
but ended up just clearing his throat.

"Don't bother denying it," Frohike said, feeling himself break into a 
sweat.  "There's the smoking gun!"

Only Scully could see that he was pointing at her hand, still at the 
base of Mulder's spine, and she looked from her hand back to him with 
genuine curiosity.  "What are you talking about?"

"That, Dana Katherine Scully, is a gesture of ownership."  He folded 
his arms across his body and pulled his eyebrows together, daring her 
to contradict him, while Byers (casually) and Langly (openly) tried to 
get a look at the gesture in question.

Scully looked back at her hand, then up at Mulder.  Her eyes found his 
with a secret, knowing smile.  "It is?"

Mulder's ears were red.  "Yeah, it is."  His eyes sought hers, and it 
didn't take an expert in body language in general or his in particular 
to see the "How the hell are we going to play this?" on his face.  
Scully just lifted an eyebrow and shrugged a little, and let her hand 
slide so that her fingers slipped under the hem of his t-shirt.  
Frohike couldn't tell what was happening under there, but Mulder and 
Scully looked at each other for a long moment, had what appeared to be 
an entire silent conversation in about two seconds, and then Mulder 
suddenly smiled.  A public smile that was an acknowledgement.  "Way to 
go, babe.  You outed us."

"No fuckin' way!" Langly shouted, like he'd just seen somebody sink an 
amazing three pointer.  "Are you serious?  *Finally*?"

Mulder slipped his arm around her casually, let his hand come to rest 
low on her hip.  And that was it.  Neither of them said a word.  
Despite Langly's persistent questions, and Frohike's glowering 
admonitions to Mulder, neither one would say another single thing 
about it.  They just stood there, his hand on her hip, her thumb 
hooked in the waistband of his jeans, smiling enigmatically.  And when 
they went to go, Scully slipped her hand into his and walked out next 
to him, turning to give Frohike a tiny wink over her shoulder as they 
disappeared out the door.

"Jesus," Frohike muttered.  "I knew there was a black hole around here 
somewhere."

-Fin-