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Mulder knocked on Scully’s door with the knuckle of his index finger. He leaned his head closer to the door to listen for the sounds of her footsteps and then stepped back when he heard movement on the other side. Scully opened the door with her head tilted in question.
“Mulder?” she asked. “What’re you doing here?”
“Well…” Mulder sheepishly flapped a loose bow tie in his hand. “I was getting ready and…Scully, do you know how to tie a bow tie by any chance?”
Scully’s right brow shot up and she stepped back from the doorway to let Mulder pass. “I’m a sailor’s daughter, Mulder,” she answered as he entered her apartment. “I can tie up anything you want.”
“I’ll settle for the bow tie right now and then I’d like to hear more about tying things up later.”
“Sit down, Mulder. You’ll have to wait until I finish getting ready.”
“T-shirt and jeans aren’t considered formal attire?” he asked, looking Scully up and down.
Scully ignored his comment to head towards her bedroom. “Make yourself at home,” she called behind her. “Though I’m sure you don’t need to be told.”
Mulder smiled and dropped the tie on Scully’s dining table. He shed his overcoat and draped it over the back of one of her chairs. It was warm in Scully’s apartment, so he removed his tuxedo jacket as well. He took a moment to inspect and adjust both of his cuff links, fiddling with the silver studs and tugging on the cuffs of his dress shirt to make sure they were secure.
Turning the chair out that held his jacket, Mulder took up a magazine that was face down on Scully’s table before he sat down. He chuckled to himself when he turned it over and looked at the cover. He was expecting some sort of medical journal, not Cosmopolitan. He paged through all the ads, stopping on an article that seemed both particularly intriguing and ridiculous.
“You’ve been awfully quiet,” Scully said, returning to the room some time later. “What kind of trouble have you gotten into?”
Mulder didn’t look up. “Shhh, Scully, you’re interrupting important research.”
“What kind of research?”
Mulder held up the magazine in Scully’s general direction, still reading. “I’m probably five minutes away from learning how to be the girl that every guy wants to date, Scully.”
“Those articles are all inane.”
“Then why’d you buy it?”
“Why don’t you check the label on it?”
Mulder closed the magazine and looked at the shipping label. It was addressed to the apartment above Scully’s. “Ah,” he said. “Misdelivered.”
“You really think I would read that tripe?”
Mulder finally looked up at Scully and his heart skipped a beat. She stood just to the side of the chair he was in, fastening a diamond stud in her ear. She was dressed in a royal blue, velvet dress, scooped low at the neck, long sleeves that were nearly off the shoulder. It was fitted at the top and the skirt flared at the hips, the hemline swinging softly just above the knees. She had on black tights and black pumps. Her hair was curled to frame her face and a thin diamond bracelet dangled from her wrist.
“You don’t need to,” Mulder answered, finding his voice.
Scully smoothed her hands down the front of her skirt as she moved away from Mulder into the kitchen.
“You’re already the girl every guy wants to date,” Mulder murmured.
“What, Mulder?”
“Nothing.”
“Want something to drink?”
“No,” Mulder said, watching her reach for a glass in her cupboard. The back of her dress was also scooped low so that her upper back and shoulder blades were exposed. Her skin was so smooth, pale and freckled. He couldn’t help but stare.
“Did you drive here or did you take a cab?” Scully asked.
“Drove,” Mulder said, but Scully didn’t hear him over the running faucet. He blinked out of his transfixed stare when Scully turned around, a glass of water in her hand, and came back to the table.
“You what?” she asked.
“I drove.”
“Mm.” Scully sipped her water and then put the glass down on the table.
“Why?”
“Trying to determine if you needed a ride.” She reached over Mulder’s shoulder and grabbed the tie. “Wasn’t planning on going together.”
“How about we just not go at all?”
Scully smiled and pulled Mulder’s collar up. “One little Christmas party won’t hurt you.”
“Holiday party, Scully. Let’s not forget we’re PC now.”
“One little holiday party won’t hurt you.”
Scully was standing by Mulder’s side and it looked like an awkward angle to him. He moved his knees apart slightly and reached for her to guide her in front of him only to realize that his hand was on her thigh. He jerked his hand away even as she side-stepped closer, her expression neutral and eyes focused on his neck. Making a weak attempt to appear nonchalant, he moved his twitching, empty hand to Scully’s hip, immediately regretting it as the material of her dress was so enticing he felt compelled to stroke it. Before he knew it, his other hand joined the first and then he was holding both hips, unable to stop his thumbs from tracing circles on the small bones under his hands. He looked up into Scully’s eyes and she glanced down at him with a bemused smile.
“Men and fabric,” Scully said.
“Men and fabric?”
“Can’t resist something soft.”
“Cosmo tell you that?”
“Experience told me that.”
Mulder dropped his eyes and looked down at his own hands still on Scully’s hips. He didn’t want to think about Scully and experience and other men. He almost tightened his grip and it hurt his fingers to keep from squeezing her. Scully’s fingers danced against his neck as she worked on his tie. She folded his collar back into place and then put her hands on his shoulders.
“Done,” Scully said. She frowned and then put her hand on Mulder’s forehead. “You look flushed, Mulder, are you all right?”
Mulder closed his eyes. “If I said I felt a cold coming on, would we still have to go?”
“But, then I would’ve tied this tie for nothing,” she said, patting his cheek.
Mulder opened his eyes and gave her a slight scowl. He reached up to feel his tie, but Scully swatted his hand away. “Don’t touch,” she said. “I need to get my coat. Are we taking separate cars?”
“I’ll drive.”
“You’ll have to bring me home later.”
“I don’t mind.”
Scully took another drink of her water and put the glass on the table again. She nodded and slipped away. Mulder could still feel the velvet of her dress on his fingertips. He sighed and stood, pulling on his jacket. Disobeying Scully’s orders, he felt his neck and touched the tips of his bow tie. He had no doubt it was perfect. He shrugged his overcoat on just as Scully returned from her bedroom wearing a black pea coat.
“Ready?” Mulder asked.
Scully tsked and crossed the room to Mulder. She reached up and adjusted his tie. “I told you to leave it alone,” she said.
“How did-”
“We should go.”
“Scully?” Mulder caught her hand just before she lowered it from his neck. “Just so you know, you look really pretty.”
“Say what you want, Mulder, you’re not getting out of this.”
Mulder’s shoulders slumped a little as he followed Scully out the door. Trust Scully to turn a compliment into a ploy. He could only blame himself for that.
They pulled into the driveway of the Kennedy Center only twenty minutes past the starting time of the party. Fashionably late, his mother might say. Mulder stopped at the curb near the entrance doors and Scully cocked her head at him.
“You can head in here,” Mulder said. “I’ll find a place to park and meet you inside.”
“Why?”
“I’m not running off, Scully. Don’t worry.”
“I’m not worried. I just don’t need to be dropped off like a teenager at the mall.”
“I didn’t think you needed a chaperone.”
“What if I want one?”
Mulder gripped the steering wheel a little tighter and swallowed. Scully reached over and put her hand on Mulder’s arm.
“Hey,” Scully said. “I know it’s hard for you with these things. If you really want to go home, go ahead. I’ll tell Skinner you weren’t feeling well.”
“No, you’re right. One little holiday party isn’t going to kill me.”
Scully turned her head to look out her window at the doors and then turned back to Mulder. “Sooner we go in, sooner we can leave?”
“This isn’t at the top of your list of things to do either, is it, Scully?”
“I’m pretty sure I’ve forgotten how to socialize. But, I think I’d like to remember for a night.”
Mulder parked the car and pondered on chivalry. Scully was out of the car before he could even consider opening the door for her, which he found disappointing. There were times that Mulder just wanted to stop her, for just a minute, and remind her that she didn’t have to be Agent Scully every second of every day; that she was also a woman, a beautiful woman, and that he was a man. If she would just allow it, he thought, he could show her.
As they crossed the parking lot, Mulder automatically stepped close to her side and put a hand on the small of her back. It was a gesture he made often, but it felt a little awkward in this situation. If they were on their way to anywhere else, he would enjoy this odd, formal setting, dressing the part for a date, but it wasn’t a date. It wasn’t anywhere near a date. It was a work function, forced upon them, full of colleagues, not friends, that barely tolerated Mulder on a good day. They shouldn’t have arrived together, but if Mulder was being honest, he was afraid to enter the lions’ den by himself. He knew, deep down, that Scully was the reason he was even tolerated. His human credential.
They checked their coats once they got inside and followed the signs to the ballroom. Mulder pulled Scully aside at the door just before they went in. He took a glance inside at all the people milling about.
“Scully, I’m not going to hold you back.”
“Hold me back?”
“You don’t need to stay with me. Go mingle and enjoy yourself. I’ll be around.”
“Mulder, no.”
“Scully, yes. I’ll just find a wall to talk to. I’m sure everyone in there would like nothing more and expect nothing less. I want you to have a nice time.”
“Mulder, that’s…you act like you’re my cross to bear. I don’t think that.”
“Don’t you?”
“Mulder!” Scully whispered emphatically, her face contorting in concern. She looked at Mulder like he just told her he was secretly moonlighting as the flukeman in his spare time.
“Go, Scully. We’ll both have a better time if you just go.”
Scully pressed her lips together. Her eyes were wet and wide. Mulder felt terrible. As usual, his good intentions backfired. He hadn’t meant to upset her, but clearly she was upset.
“Scully, I just-“
“No, Mulder. I get it. It’s fine. I’ll find my own way home, thank you for the ride.”
“Scully…”
Scully turned on her heel and walked away from him. She disappeared amongst the other arrivals and was absorbed into the crowd. Mulder sighed and slumped against the wall, banging the back of his head in defeat. He figured the best thing he could do right now was to go into that room and make the best of things. He would do his best not to sulk and not to attract animosity. When he wanted to be, he knew how to be inconspicuous.
Mulder spent the next hour and a half seated at the side of the open bar, casually nursing ginger ales and keeping an eye on Scully. He made idle chit chat with the bartender when she had a moment between patrons. Nine out of ten agents that approached the bar did so with a condescending glare at Mulder. He ignored the sneers and thanked his good fortune that no one tried to engage him. Skinner was the only one that spoke to him.
“Agent Mulder,” Skinner said.
“Assistant Director,” Mulder answered.
“Why aren’t you with your partner?”
Mulder glanced over at Scully, on the dance floor with an agent he recognized as a toxicologist in the forensics lab, and then looked down at his drink. “Agent Scully came to socialize.”
Skinner looked over his shoulder at the dance floor and then back at Mulder. “Mulder, I asked you to consider this event mandatory not to punish you, but to try to improve your image.”
“Improve my image?” Mulder looked up at Skinner and raised his brows. “Sir, I could probably pull a wagon into this room with the bodies of Jimmy Hoffa and Amelia Earhart in it, clutching handwritten confessions from Jack the Ripper, the Black Dahlia murderer and the Zodiac Killer and I can bet that everyone here would just want to know if ET was Spooky Mulder’s informant. How could being the unwanted joke at the office Christmas, excuse me, holiday party, possibly help my image?”
Skinner’s jaw clenched and released. He took his glasses off and rubbed them clean with a cocktail napkin for a few moments before he fixed them back over his ears and then took a seat next to Mulder.
“This may come as a surprise to you, Mulder, but not everyone here feels that way.”
Mulder snorted and took a sip of his ginger ale.
“Mulder, Kersh has it out for you,” Skinner continued. “I would rather see you keep the friends you have and not make any more enemies.”
“What friends do I have?”
“The ones who make their requests through me for you to join their task forces when your expertise is needed. A lot of those requests were denied when you were under Kersh’s thumb. I’m not saying he started a smear campaign at that time, but the reports he submitted through OPR suggest that you are reclusive, stand-offish, do not cooperate with other agents, and are routinely subordinate.”
“Well, it’s only slander if it isn’t true.”
“Are you sure about that? I ordered you here and you didn’t disobey. No matter how much you don’t want to be here, you’re here.”
“Yeah, well…you asked so nicely.” Mulder couldn’t quite keep the sarcasm out of his voice.
“I know you don’t care much what other people think of your methods because at the end of the day, you get your job done. You help people. You’ve risked your life for friends, for strangers, for your partner, and for me. You have the highest solve rate in the bureau and quite frankly, it’s the only thing that saves your ass every time you come up for review.”
Mulder lowered his eyes to his drink again. Skinner was probably the only person he knew that could make a compliment sound like a lecture at the same time. They’d been on a tight leash since their return to the X-Files and an even tighter leash since the whole alien artifact brain surgery incident. Their reviews were frequent and less than kind and Mulder had been getting tired of it.
“There are people here who care about you,” Skinner said, rising from the barstool. “And don’t care to see you willingly participate in your own downfall. Enjoy the rest of the party, Agent Mulder.”
“You too, Sir.”
Skinner left and Mulder contemplated over the melted ice in his drink. He knew his record was less than spotless, he didn’t need Skinner to tell him that. He also knew that Kersh hated him with all the fires of a thousand suns, but if he was blocked from assisting in any investigations where his help could save a life, he couldn’t tolerate that. Fighting Kersh wasn’t an option and he could see how Skinner thought showing up at a bureau function and playing nicely with the other agents might be a good PR move. He wished Skinner would’ve told him this beforehand.
Mulder sighed and scratched at the bow tie at his throat. He had possibly blown his best chance for socializing when he pushed Scully away. Now, he would feel foolish if he wandered around the room trying to strike up conversations. It was hard to think and he wanted some air. He dropped a generous tip in the bartender’s jar and went out to the terrace overlooking the mall, the illuminated Washington monument in the distance. It was cold, but not unbearable, and the terrace was deserted. He stood at the rail and looked out over the city.
It was only a few minutes later that Mulder heard the terrace doors open and the murmur of the party swelled and ceased when the doors snicked shut. He didn’t turn, assuming someone had come out to smoke or maybe be alone as he had, but suddenly he felt a small tug at the elbow of his jacket. He turned just as Scully joined his side, slipping her arm through his. She didn’t look at him, eyes settling on the city view that Mulder had been gazing at.
“On a scale of one to ten,” Mulder said. “How pissed are you at me?”
“One being not pissed and ten being really super pissed?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll say definitely somewhere between the one to ten range.”
“I’m sorry, Scully.”
“I know you are, Mulder. What are you doing out here?”
“Thinking.”
“About?”
“You, actually.”
Mulder felt Scully shiver next to him and within seconds, he had his jacket off and was draping it over her shoulders. She made a noise of protest, even as she pulled the lapels closer over her chest. Mulder put his hands on her shoulders and then rubbed her arms a few times. Blaming it on a moment of weakness, he moved closer to her and brought his arms around her waist, pressing his chest very lightly to her back. He heard her gasp softly as he brought his cheek down to rest on her head.
“Mulder?” Scully’s voice came out in a whisper.
“I was out here thinking that you’re the only one in that room that I care about what they think. Maybe in the world. I watched you in there, talking to people, dancing, laughing, and I wished more than anything that I was a different person, one that you could share with other people.”
Mulder paused and tightened his arms a little. He breathed in the intoxicating scent of Scully’s shampoo. She smelled like apples. Her hair was so soft against his cheek and nose.
“I’m sorry that I’m not what I should be for you,” he continued. “You might not think of me as your cross to bear, but I am yours, Scully. Whatever that means. Whatever you want it to mean, I belong to you. So, Merry Christmas, Scully, unfortunately there are no exchanges or refunds.”
Mulder could see Scully’s breath in the cold night air. Her chest rose and fell in time with the white puffs that evaporated in seconds from her lips. Very quickly, Scully turned in his arms and he had just enough time to lift his head to getting clipped in the jaw. She pressed her palms flat to his chest, her chin raised up to meet his eyes. When he looked at her face, his eyes were drawn to the glistening trail of tears down the middle of her right cheek. He reached up to brush the wetness away and held her face with both hands.
Scully’s fingers curled and her nails scratched Mulder’s chest lightly as she rose on her toes and touched her mouth to his. His neck bent forward when she came back down on her heels, keeping her kiss from ending. His arms curled like vines around her and he held the back of her head to be able to kiss her harder. She shifted her feet and whimpered, frustrated that her hands were trapped at his chest, wanting to move her arms around him, pull him even closer if it was possible.
Behind him, Mulder heard the dull murmur of voices and he ruefully broke his kiss with Scully, hiding her in the confines of his embrace before he took a glance over his shoulder. All he saw was the back of Skinner’s head as his boss re-entered the ballroom and the door closed again.
“Mulder?” Scully whispered.
“It’s okay,” Mulder said, placing a hand on Scully’s head and holding her against his heart. “I think Skinner may have just lost what little hair he has left on his head.”
“Oh, God.” Scully laughed softly, closing her eyes. “Mulder…”
“It’s okay. I think it’s okay.” Mulder stroked her hair until she lifted her head and pulled back from his chest. She looked up at him, scanning his face with her eyes for a few moments.
“Pink really isn’t your color,” she said, reaching up and wiping her thumb across his bottom lip to remove a smear of lipstick. He caught her hand and kissed the inside of her wrist.
“If you’re wearing it, it’s my color,” he said, lowering his head to kiss the corner of her mouth.
Scully smiled up at Mulder when he pulled back. “Do you want to get out of here?” she asked.
“I’ve wanted to get out of here before we got here.” Mulder snorted. “But…”
“But?”
Mulder shrugged. “If we stay, will you dance with me?”
Scully’s brow shot up. “What would people think about that, Agent Mulder?”
“Probably that I’m the luckiest son of a bitch in the room and I don’t deserve the partner I have. You know, the usual.”
Scully slipped Mulder’s jacket off her shoulders and gave it back to him. He put it on and tugged it into place before closing the button. Out of habit he reached up and tried to adjust his tie.
“How many times do I have to tell you?” Scully asked, pushing Mulder’s hand aside and fingering the knot at his neck. “You’re impossible.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Mulder pulled Scully’s hand away and laced their fingers together, giving them a light squeeze. He led her back to the terrace doors, but she stopped and tugged him back until he turned to face her.
“What?” Mulder asked.
“What you said before, about wanting to be someone else for me…Mulder, I wouldn’t return you even if I could. Even when you’re moody and say things you don’t mean and piss me off, you’re still mine. And I want you as you are.”
Mulder blinked rapidly, feeling moisture creep into his eyes. He turned his head away from Scully, just for a moment, and then met her gaze. She took a step closer to him and put a hand on his chest, stretching up to kiss his jaw.
“Merry Christmas, Mulder.”
“I think you mean Happy Holidays, Scully.”
“It’s cold, Mulder. Come inside and dance with me.”
“Nothing I’d like better.”
The End