Author: Emily Short (emshort@mindspring.com)
Archiving: Freely
Rating: PG-13
Keywords: MSR
Spoilers: None, really.
Disclaimer: To Chris Carter and FOX belong the money and the honor.
Summary: Skeptical!Scully gives way...

*****

She's not looking at me.  She's trying to scrub pizza sauce out of her
blouse, without taking it off: a doomed procedure.

I take this opportunity to snag the last slice out of the box.

"Saw that," she mutters.  A moment later she throws down the damp napkin she
was using.  "Screw it, it's a dead loss."  She seems oddly cheerful about
the fact.

"You could take it off," I offer.

"Watch it, G-Man, I could sue for harrassment."  

"I was referring to the fact that your motel room, and your suitcase, and
presumably another shirt, are just through that door."  I point with my
piece of pizza, nearly losing a wad of mozzarella in the process.

"That's okay, I'll rough it."  She uncaps her fountain pen and holds it
poised over the page.  "Now where were we?"

I scoot my butt over several feet of motel carpeting so that I am sitting
next to her, leaning against the bed, where I can see the pad of legal
paper.  She moves it protectively, but not soon enough.  

"Whoa, Scully," I say.  "Nice sketch of Skinner."

She moves her hand away from where it was covering a very apt caricature of
the Assistant Director.  "Bad habit I have," she says.  "Can we get back to
business, please?"

"I think it might be my turn to write," I say, polishing off the pizza and
licking my fingers.  I'm not sure what's gotten into me, or why I'm being so
juvenile, but the fact is that we're having a good time.  Really, a good
time.  When was it that we last found this job *fun*?  Did we ever?

She hands me the legal pad, and the pen.  It fits comfortably in my grip.  A
classy writing implement for a classy woman; it's not ostentatious, not one
of those brand-name pens that costs hundreds of dollars, but it lays down a
smooth beautiful line.  I can see why she likes it so much.  Scully has a
strong sensual side, which doesn't get nearly enough play...

"Mulder?"

"Sorry, my brain sort of, ah, wandered off."

She gives me a stern look then and we really do get down to business.  She's
done a businesslike, forensic job of listing what we already know in this
case -- testimony gathered from all the members of the family about the
supposed paranormal sightings, as well as the child psychologist who got
called in when the children first started talking about "ghosts".  Each name
is lined up against a few words of summary.  In the margins she's written a
few remarks.  She doesn't care for the psychologist.  An intuition, nothing
more, but I support it.  I draw a box and a couple of stars to highlight
this point.  "The shrink's a kook," I say.

"All shrinks are kooks."

"Thank you."  I take a deep breath.  "Okay.  We could have genuine ghosts at
work here."

"True.  But why now?  Why would they be manifesting themselves at this
point, to these people?"

"Good question."  I write it down: GHOSTS.  WHY NOW?

"Could be witchcraft," she submits.  "Someone in the town is deliberately
trying to confuse the children or drive them insane."

"You suspect the psychologist."

"Drumming up business.  Why not?"  

So I write that down too.  WITCHCRAFT.  SHRINK?

"Could be drugs," I say.  "Tampering with the water supply.  Testing of some
kind."

"Could be.  We'd want to find out who else shares their water supply,
whether anyone else has reported similar effects.  Might check their
television sets while we're at it, see if anything's being broadcast.  If we
hear anything about broad-range effects."

"Good point.  One of us should ask around tomorrow.  Go door to door, or
maybe ask some of the teachers at the local school."  I tap the pen against
the paper.  "How about a curse?  The house itself might be cursed
somehow..."

We get on a roll and it starts really going well.  The page is filling up
with my notes, written in boxes and connected by a crisscross of lines.  Her
original division into columns is almost entirely effaced -- and off in the
corner, Skinner is staring evilly at me.  Finally I have no choice but to
scribble him out.

"Mulder!" she says.  "What did Skinner ever do to you?"

"He was just LOOKING at me.  I could feel his disapproval emanating from the
paper."

"Heh."  She takes the pad away from me and sets it down in front of her.  "I
think we've accomplished all we were going to anyway."

I've still got the pen. I turn it over in my hands.  "Scully?"

"Yeah?"

"Brainstorming works much better with two people."

"So it does."  She smiles a little shyly.  "I'm sorry it took us so long to
get on the same page."

I look at the page in question.  When this is over, I'm going to take it
home and frame it and keep it on my wall.  And hope Skinner never comes to
visit.

"Scully, I'm sorry your shirt is ruined," I remark.

"That's okay."  She gives it one last rueful swipe.  "All in a good cause. 
I didn't like it anyway."  There's a pause.  "Mulder," she says, with a
little yip.  "What do you think you're doing?"

"You said the shirt was ruined," I say.  "I figured, in that case, why not
help it along?"  

She has a hard time getting into a position where she can see what I've
written on the shoulder of her blouse.  The blue ink is spreading slightly
on the silk, getting messy, but it's still clear enough: a pair of snakes,
biting each other's tails.

She frowns at it for a long moment, then at me.  "What's that supposed to
mean?" 

I shrug, putting the cap back on the pen.  I'm not sure, really; or,
actually, I do know, but if I have to explain, I don't want to.  It occurs
to me that someone with less Jungian background might see it as a simple
obscene suggestion, and that amuses me.

We both sit there, not saying anything.  "You know this doesn't mean I'm
going to let you get away with more now."

"I wouldn't want it to," I say.  I guess we really *are* on the same page. 
She understands.

"It's just best that we explore all the options that we know of."  Her hands
are clasped neatly around one knee.  She seems imperturbed by the blue
graffiti on her shoulder, and I find myself uncapping the pen again,
watching the movement of her shoulderblade under the white silk.  Without
really thinking about it, I start drawing again, this time on her back.

She leans forward with a strange sigh, resting her head on her raised knee. 
"I hope that's not bleeding through," she says quietly.

"I don't think so," I reply.  "The silk is pretty absorbent."  It's a
wonderful writing surface.  It makes me think of some exotic eastern scene:
a Chinese magistrate, a man of unspeakable power and arcane knowledge,
drawing words of great meaning on the back of his concubine--

"Mulder?"

I blink slowly, dragging myself back from an inexcusably chauvinistic
reverie.  "Yeah?"

"I'm pretty sure that if you just hold the pen in one place, the ink WILL
soak through."

I lift the pen, and, sure enough, there's a spreading blot in the middle of
my picture.  "Shit, Scully, I'm sorry."

She laughs softly.  "S'okay, Mulder.  If it really mattered, I would've
stopped you."  She turns her head more so that she can see me, without
actually raising it.  "It feels funny."

"Ticklish?"

"No."  She does raise her head then, and eyes me speculatively.  "Since
we're wasting all my ink anyway, how devoted are you to that shirt?"

I glance down at what I'm wearing.  Pretty bland standard-issue stuff.  It
doesn't have that wonderful lustre of Scully-shirt.  "I don't think it'll be
as much fun to write on," I remark.  "But if you really want to, go ahead." 


She makes a little jerking motion with her head and I find myself lying
prone on the carpet, nose to nose with the dustbunnies.  Very delicately and
carefully, she lifts down the motel lamp and sets it on the floor beside me.
 "I need to be able to see."

Then she begins to draw.  And it does feel... extraordinary.  Not ticklish. 
Not exactly sexual.  But intimate, somehow, and it strikes me as a good
metaphor for us, for what we've been doing all these years.  Carving our
meanings into each other.  I close my eyes and start to float, comatose with
food and a long day and quiet and contentment.  But I'm not going to sleep,
either.

Whatever she's drawing, it's very intricate.  "That'd better not be another
Skinner," I say, after a long, long time.

She stifles a snort.  "No.  But don't move, Mulder, you'll wreck the
drawing."  The lines become longer now, descending along my spine, and she
is forced to put one hand on my back to keep my shirt smooth enough to write
on.  

Did I say it didn't feel sexual?  I lied.

"There," she says.  "Finished."

I groan a little bit, and push myself back up to a sitting position.  There
are a few moments of comedy in which I try to get a look at it in the
mirror, but the only reflective surface in this dump is about twelve inches
on a side and located in the dimmest part of the room.  Finally I give up
and just take the shirt off.  Scully's sitting on the edge of the bed,
watching this with a sort of bemused expression on her face.  Anticipating:
a little like when you give someone a present, and they're opening it, and
you're not sure how they're going to like it.

Well.  I do like it.  Speaking of Jungian images, she's been reading up:
it's an alchemical symbol of the hermaphrodite, one side man, the other side
woman.  A sign of unity, wholeness, the reconciliation of one's warring
internal principles.  There's nothing obscene about it.  Both halves are
fully clothed and in somewhat medieval costume, just like the old
manuscripts have them.  The woman is holding a cup; the man has three
snakes.  I've forgotten what that means.  But overhead there is a sun and a
moon, and the double head of the couple is wearing a golden crown.

"Wow, Scully."

She smiles and draws her legs up against her chest again, a little-girl
gesture that I'm beginning to recognize.  (She's afraid of me?  Of this?  Of
something that's happening...)

"That's what I'm getting for my next tattoo," she says.

I spread the shirt neatly over the back of a chair.  I know that I'll never
throw it away, never wash it.  Another souvenir.  This has been a productive
evening.  I walk back over to where she's sitting.  "Thank you," I say.

She looks up into my eyes.  Not flinching.  Not misunderstanding.  "You're
welcome."  She takes my hand and tugs me down to sit next to her.

"I think your undershirt might be a little the worse for wear, too," she
remarks.

"That's why God made bleach."  I run a finger over the writing on her back,
tracing the lines with a finger.  She shivers.  

"Sorry," I say, retreating to my own territory.  This could get out of
control.  I'm not sure whether she wants it to.  We're definitely at a
landmark of understanding here, but I don't want to push my luck.

Her eyes meet mine and she gives me a funny little smile.  "It's after
midnight, Mulder."

I glance at my watch.  "So it is."  If we were in her room, I'd take this as
my cue to leave.  But it's my room and my bed we're sitting on.

"My friends in college had a rule.  Anything you said after midnight could
not be held against you in the morning.  It was sort of a free pass."

"Okay."

"It didn't mean that what you said wasn't true, it just meant --"

"I understand, I think.  No harm, no foul."  Feeling inspired, I grab the
pen and write on her spare sleeve: 'Get out of jail free!!!'  

"There," I say, recapping it.  "Say what you want to say."

"Oh, to hell with talking," she mutters.  And she leans over and kisses me.

It's a good kiss.  A real kiss, starting gentle and opening up a little at
the end.  There's another one after it, that ends up with us both lying back
on the bed and kind of tangled up with each other.  I lean away from her at
the end of it, trying to catch the expression on her face.  That's hard to
do: it's dim up here, with the only functioning lamp still on the floor.  In
the end, it makes sense to find out by touch.  I trace the curve of her
cheek, and her eyebrows, and her lips.  She seems... not displeased.

"Now what was the horrible thing that you wanted to tell me?" I ask.

She laughs, a sweet surprised giggle that says she's happy with me.  "I
guess I won't be needing my get-out-of-jail-free sleeve after all."

I shake my head once, leaning down to her again.  "You should've known," I
say.  "What was I going to do?  Say, 'Let's just be friends' after I've been
in love with you for the past seven years?"

"Seven?" she repeats.

"Well.  At least five."  My gaze drops to her necklace, bunched in the
hollow of her throat.  I touch it with one finger, and we both know, we both
remember...  I clear my throat and look back at her eyes.  "Before that it's
remotely possible that I just thought you were hot."

She slips her hand into my hair and pulls me back for another kiss.  I run
my thumb along her collarbone, returning in the end to that soft warm
vulnerable spot at the center that always fascinates me.  The place where
she keeps her faith; the place where, sometimes, I can see her pulse.  

She puts her hand over mine and I think that I've somehow upset her, but she
only stills me long enough to unbutton the top few buttons of her shirt.

"Anything I can help you with, there?" I ask.  (Does my voice really sound
THAT HIGH to her?)

"Well, this really isn't a solo type of operation," she replies, the laugh
back in her voice.  The shirt comes off and is flung into a corner.  Its
work here is done.  

She watches me look at her, a faint smile on her face.  "I think I did
know," she says.  "I just wasn't all the way certain.  But I wanted to
believe."  She puts her hand flat on my chest, over my heart.  I feel my
heartbeat speeding up at her touch.  "How long have *you* known?"

"Always, and not until just now," I reply.  "And most of the time I figured
you were too sensible to act on what you felt -- assuming that I was right
and you really were feeling it and I wasn't just projecting --"

It's a sentence doomed to go unfinished.  We end in a tangle again, but this
time I have better access.  Touching her is a wonderful thing, not to be
rushed; I haven't felt like this since I was a teenager.  Perhaps I haven't
felt like this *ever*.  Happy.  At peace.  Reconciled, and whole.

------

Finis