#take me home mulder
The fourth series reads as follows:
Apple Balancing…Potential…The Newbies…The Dessert…Dinosaurs and Cannibalism…Sassy Sprinklepants…The Secret Vault of Mudlerness…Taco Night…Neckhole Wrestling…The Onesie…Multiplication…Catching On…Thanksgiving…The Funeral…Midnight Libations…Stockings were Hung…Mama Walter…Jesus, Mary, and Joseph (Skimmer-style) …Official
To catch up: First series…Second series … Third series
&&&&&&&&
Taking the bag for his hand, “trying to make me cry?”
“Naw, just thought you’d like to hang with me down here a little while longer.” Looking around, “Doggett and Harrison are in Phoenix and Reyes is back down in New Orleans so we have the whole place to ourselves.”
Slowly opening the bag, she randomly pulled out a green one, “I believe this was ‘green with envy to work with me.’”
He watched her pop it in her mouth and for the tenth time already that day, he thanked whomever was listening that he got to come home to her every night, “there was a time, in San Francisco, that you were standing next to me, talking to a plainclothes, Hawkins I think his name was, and you had your bag on your shoulder, and some asshole, you remember him,” he could see her nodding already, “some asshole ran by and stole your purse. Before either Hawkins or I had a chance to react, you were gone, hauling ass flat out, in those fat heels of yours, and you tackled him, literally tackled him, in the middle of that crowd of tourists, slid his face right across the pavement in front of the Giradelli chocolate place.” Grinning at the memory, “then you proceeded to sit on him, straddle his chest while reading his rights and holding his arms with your knees.”
“Ripped the knee of my pants that day.”
“Totally worth a new pair of pants. Anyway, Hawkins and I got there and we both stopped, and Hawkins, swear to God, leaned over to me and told me he was thoroughly jealous of me and if you ever decided to leave Washington, he wanted to hear about it so he could lobby for you to come work with him.”
Mulder then held another green M&M out to her.
Opening her mouth for it to be deposited, she chewed slowly, swallowing before, “well, he’s going to be waiting forever but it’s nice to know I have options.” Next, she dug up an orange, “orange you glad we’re partners.”
“Orange you?”
Her laugh was sudden and beautiful, filling the space and making his heart skip a beat, “yes, I am. Very glad.”
Taking her hand, he kissed her wedding ring, gold warm, diamond hard, “you might be leaving behind the Bureau but we’re partners for life now … you and me.” Running her knuckles along his lips, he stared down at her, “you and me … forever … understood?”
Her eyes wobbled for a second, one tear making a break for it, racing down her cheek, gravity working as it should, “understood.”
He ate this M&M himself.
Once they finally broke their gaze, and yes, it was gazing, Scully swiped her cheek dry, then held up a blue candy, “because you’re blue without me.”
“Are you kidding? Do you remember my calls to you when you were on vacation in Maine with the witchy, possessed doll and the lobster-eating sheriff?” Pointing up and behind him, toward the pencils still precariously hanging in the ceiling, “that time I perfected the pencil flip …”
“I like that you put them back up there after the fire …”
He continued without pause, “remember when I drove halfway across the country and kidnapped you for the road trip to end all road trips? What about when I chased the Jersey Devil in response to you having dinner with that numpty and leaving me to my own devices for the weekend?” On a roll now, “that was probably an unconscious jealousy response more than a blue one but I’m telling this story and I’m storing it under ‘blue’ … anyway … then there was that time,” he paused here, suddenly feeling his chest tighten, “then there were those times you were missing.” Stepping in closer, he moved his hands to her face, angling it to get the best view of her soul, “that three months were the worst I’ve ever spent. At least when you were in Antarctica, I had a purpose, a goal, a spot to go to … I knew where you were but when they took you,” he watched her eyes contract for a moment, watched her mind travel back to that train car for an instant before returning to the basement with him, “I was so lost, so … just … I never, ever, ever, want to be without you ever again.”
She ate the blue one quickly, trying not to choke as she swallowed, “can we … I don’t like to talk about ‘blue’.”
He dove his hand into the bag, quickly pulling out a yellow, “then we should discuss ‘yellow’ and all the yelling it represents.”
Glad to leave ‘blue’ behind, she had to smile at the memories of their knockdown, drag outs over the years, “I wonder how many times I’ve slammed that file cabinet in response to one of your asinine theories?”
“At least once a week, I’d say but in counterpoint, a lot of those theories ended up being partially correct.”
“You actually made me lose my voice once from yelling at you.”
He had no idea, “when was this?”
“Somewhere roundabout year three, maybe, we were standing outside some police station in North Dakota, I think, and it was raining and you just wouldn’t listen.” Shaking her head at him, she swallowed, remembered the thunder and the anger and the stubbornness that drove them both in the earlier years, “I don’t even remember exactly why we were arguing; I just remember finally having to scream at you to ‘shut up for a second’ and you couldn’t hear me because of the thunder and I had to yell it again and there was this terrible searing pain down my throat,” absently running a hand from jaw to collarbone, “and you just … God, I may not remember the subject but I have never wanted to throttle you more than on that day.”
“It was the simultaneous cases of sheep herds breaking free of their corrals and running off. I quoted the same phenomenon happening in England in 1888 and you told me to ‘kiss your ass’.”
Now she remembered, “it was lightning! For God sakes, it was lightning scaring them.”
“Calm down. I know that now and I agreed with you then once we checked weather reports and such.”
“I couldn’t talk for a damn week.”
“You said it was just a cold.”
Eating a second yellow M&M just because she could, “I didn’t want to make you feel bad.”
He hugged her then, kissing both her forehead and her mouth before pulling back again, “I’m glad we don’t fight like that anymore.”
“We do … it’s just about more … domestic … things.”
“You did scream at me pretty good a few weeks back about the toilet seat.”
“Cliché as it might be, Mulder, when you leave it up and I sit down on it at 4:17 in the morning, then fall in the cold water, you’re going to get woken up and screamed at.”
Another kiss, “I’m glad you still like me.”
“I’m glad you still like me, too.” Turning the bag over and over, she looked at him with a pout, “there’s no purple in here.”
“I know. Those fuckers still haven’t eliminated the shit brown M&M and replaced it with the purple. I’ve really got to write them an angry letter or something.”
“We’ll write it tonight.”
This time, his arms went around her waist, leaning a little more than usual to compensate for the roundness that was child #2 and #3, “I don’t need candy to remind me just how perfect you are.”
“I am far from perfect.” Kissing him, holding the connection even after her mouth stilled, she broke contact only because she knew Mulder’s back must be hurting, “and so are you but we are perfect together.”
“Yin and yang … salt and pepper … rice and beans … mac and cheese … blue punch and cards … it’s MulderNScully, baby, all the way.”
“I was waiting for you to say ‘liver and onions.’
Shuddering slightly, “we don’t talk about liver, remember?”
With a laugh, she gave him another quick kiss before finally settling back, scooting up to sit on the desk, her feet beginning to swell in the dress shoes she hadn’t worn in months, “so,” surreptitiously but not at all, finding and retrieving a red M&M, she rolled it between her fingers as she held it up, halfway between him and her, “we only have red left.”
His eyes filled for a second but he blinked the tears back, sniffing his instantly runny nose, “I have loved every second of working with you but that ain’t nothin’ compared to how much I have loved every other second with you. I’m wasn’t kidding when I told you I fell in love with you when I woke up in Alaska but I think I was already gone by the time we left Oregon on our first case.” Moving between her knees, he reached his hand forward to toy with her necklace, “I’ve loved you for a very long time, Agent Scully, and while I can try, there will never be enough red M&Ms in the universe to adequately represent even a fraction of my feelings for you.”
Well, fucking hell, she was crying now.
Leaning forward as much as she could, he leaned, meeting her forehead in their unmistakable gesture of mutual adoration, “take me home, Mulder.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
