by Phetsy Calderon <phetsy@earthlink.net>
Copyright (c) 1997 Phetsy Calderon. All rights reserved, except that the characters Dana Scully and Sen. Richard Matheson are the property of Chris Carter and 1013 Productions. Some dialoge copyright 1997 (c) 1013 Productions. No copyright infringement is intended, and all rights to the characters remain with the copyright owner
Please do not forward to any lists nor archive this story.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: this picks up right after the end of "I Can Explain."
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There was nothing else to do but join Scully and walk back to the car.
'I don't imagine you need to be told this, Mulder, but you're not a loser.'
//So why can't you look at me when you say that, Scully?//
But he didn't say what he was thinking, just let the silence gap between them.
"Yeah, but I'm no Eddie van Blundht, either, am I?," he asked her, with his hands twisting together, eyes lowered.
//Thinking Eddie was a lot smoother than the genuine article, Scully? I guess real world experience counts more than *videos,* huh?//
She offered him no answer at all.
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The silence held until they reached the parking lot. Mulder, withdrawn into his own thoughts, found himself practically plowing into her back. He leant back and almost overbalanced as she she whirled and fixed him with the twin high-power sapphire lasers.
"And thank Goodness you're not, Mulder."
"What?"
"You're not weaselly, you're not unimaginative, you're not a pathetic little dweeb who has to hide behind someone else's face to get a little action. . ."
"Scully?!" Mulder was occaisonally jarringly reminded that his partner was part of a large Navy family.
". . .you have a quick sense of humor, you know better than to buy me mediocre red wine--
"Well, to be fair, Scully, Stony Ridge Merlot ain't too shabby." //She should've noticed that,// he thought. // Maybe Eddie had her more distracted than--than I want to know.//
"Don't interrupt me, Mulder, I'm not finished. You're loyal, and imaginative, and damned good at what you do--"
"Even if I can't prove any of it to your satisfaction," he interjected. He would've said more, but one shot from her eyes dissuaded him.
"You have almost no male ego--"
"Gee, thanks Scully. You really know how to make a guy feel like big stuff."
"You can hold an intelligent discussion on anything from the Cavalier poets to treatment methods for post-traumatic stress disorder to Jungian archetypes."
"And I know important stuff, too, like the Knicks' win-loss record and where to get a good softshell crab on the Maryland shore."
"And you have yet to squirm awkwardly all over my sofa just because there's a person of the female persuasion seated on the other end."
"Yeah, but I'd happily do some squirming of the enthusiastic sort on your sofa," he muttered under his breath. He snuck a quick look at his partner--nope, she was still in full spate. That last little aside hadn't so much as blipped her radar.
"The last thing you need to do is explain yourself or your life to some pudgy little janitor who has to masquerade as anybody else to achieve anythign remotely resembling a love life."
"At least he has a love life, Scully."
"Yeah, well, your lack thereof puts you in good company, y'know."
"That company being. . .?"
"At least one forensic pathologist working for the FBI."
His grin was full-blown, now. "Couldn't possibly be in any better company. Although if said pathologist ever wants to investigate the extreme possibility of getting a life, of any sort, . . ."
"I'll depend on you to keep me from doing anything outrageous "
"Scully?"
"Mulder?"
"Do I get to define outrageous?"
A beat.
"You always do, Mulder. You always do."
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