the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses

She’s met by a thick, oppressive wall of sticky heat. The cicadas drone like a jackhammer in the background.

“That’s right, ma’am,” the girl says on the phone. “I’m sorry. I know it’s real hot out there.”

“Yes,” Scully says flatly. “I would say it’s unbearable.”

One hand pressing back the door, she morosely takes in the scene outside. Heat hovers in waves over the motel parking lot, giving everything a hazy quality. The sky above is moth gray, sooty at the edges.

A short distance across the parking lot, middle-aged men in wildly patterned swim trunks are sprawled around the sickly-green swimming pool. They share a styrofoam cooler of beer. Scully suspects this is against the pool rules.

“We’ll try to bring around some fans for y’all if we can find enough,” the girl is saying. “But we’ve got a lot of unhappy guests tonight, so I don’t know if there will be enough…”

“Right,” Scully says unhappily. “Thank you.”

“Oh, also, don’t forget to turn on your TV,” the girl adds helpfully. A pop of gum in the receiver. “Because on channel 5 they’ve been saying we might get a tornado.”

“Obviously,” Scully says, not bothering to conceal the sarcastic tinge. “Of course.” There is a flash of heat lightning in the far distance, and she frowns in reaction. “Can you tell me … did you already talk to the guest in the room next to me? Room 16? Did you warn him about the air conditioning and the tornado?”

“Let’s see,” the girl says, obviously scanning a list. “No, ma’am, I called Room 16, but no answer.”

“Mmm.” Scully, still holding her own room’s door, leans slightly into the breezway so she can see the door to Room 16. She confirms that it is closed and silent.

“If you know that guest, you should probably give him a heads up,” the girl says. “Here at the Ten Gallon Inn we want everybody to be safe.”

“Right.” Scully retreats backwards into her room, sighing softly.

“He’ll probably notice how hot it’s getting, though, right?” the girl says jovially. “That’s pretty obvious.”

Scully scowls into the receiver, her eyes on the dark shrouds of nimbostratus clouds overhead. She’s long given up trying to parse what’s obvious to her partner. You can’t always predict when a storm is going to break.

***

He doesn’t answer his phone when she calls either, which does not especially surprise her.

She picks up her key card off the bedside table and toys with it a moment, rotating the plastic rectangle idly in her fingers.

The idea of Mulder telling her to go away makes her stomach clench, but she knows she should talk to him. She should make sure he’s paying attention, that he’s okay.

From her room, it’s only about three steps to his door. She knocks quickly and waits, trying to tamp down her anxiety.

She didn’t think the heat could be worse than inside her motel room, but the mugginess out here is somehow worse. She’s sweating twice as much already. She lifts her hair off her damp neck for some relief.

Scully scrutinizes the dirty-gray clouds again, wondering how long they have before the rain starts. She’s considered checking out of the Ten Gallon Inn and looking for lodging that includes functioning air conditioning, but she isn’t sure how far she’d have to drive. The impending storm makes that seem like a silly plan.

Plus there’s Mulder, too. Whatever is going on with him.

She bites her lip anxiously. What could he be doing in there? She presses her ear to the door, listening for any sign of life.

Hearing nothing, again she knocks.

Impatience growing, she fans herself by aggressively flapping back and forth on her shirt. She’s long peeled off her blazer and wriggled out of the hose she’d worn under her pencil skirt. Now even the simple silk blouse she has left is damp and sticking to her.

And, she reminds herself with a sinking feeling, she has nothing else clean to change into. What she will do tomorrow for clean clothing is a mystery to her.

They were supposed to go home the day before yesterday. They only stayed in Duncan, Oklahoma because Mulder insisted they could solve the case.

As usual, everyone had doubted him—the local cops for sure, Agent Chupco out of the Tulsa office, even Scully to some extent. But he’d been right. Of course he’d been right.

It was a series of murders—women and girls, very distinctive crime scenes— that occurred over three years in Oklahoma, Missouri and Texas. The killer, whom the Bureau had been informally referring to as the Professor because of his tendency to lay his victims out anatomically, had proved elusive.

They’d been brought in as consultants on Skinner’s suggestion—she as a forensics specialist, he as a profiler. It hadn’t been a long term assignment. In fact, it was only supposed to be a week.

At first, Mulder had been skeptical about their value to the investigation. He’d made jokes about them ducking out and going to a dude ranch. He’d whistled Broadway show tunes about Oklahoma.

Then she’d found the pattern. In the medical examiners’ reports, there had been trace, non-lethal amounts of mercury found on multiple victims. This had been dismissed in initial autopsies as simply environmental exposure, maybe an old dental filling or something, but Scully wasn’t so sure—the fact it recurred in multiple victims meant it was worth checking out.

When she’d explained it to Agent Chupco, he’d been thrilled. There hadn’t been any real breakthrough in the case for years.

She’d speculated to Chupco and Mulder that the trace mercury might be mercuric chloride, a solution used by botanists and naturalists for preserving plants. Mulder had listened intently to her, looked at her findings, and agreed.

Then it was like he’d shut off—turned completely inward.

No, not inward. That’s not the word for it. He’d turned into another person altogether, a cold and distant stranger who was entirely preoccupied with this case.

He stopped sleeping much, as far as she could tell. His answers to her questions became very clipped, even when she asked him his thoughts on the case.

When she told him directly she was worried, he didn’t quite make eye contact with her.

At the end of the week, Scully tentatively floated the idea that they pack it up and go home as scheduled—let the detectives here follow up on their leads. She’d been eager to see Mulder go back to his regular life, because she didn’t like what was happening here.

He was adamant they needed to stay. He’d insisted her findings had him ninety-nine percent to leading them to an arrest. He just needed a little more time, he assured her. He could do it, he told her. He would solve it, he promised.

And how could she deny it? He had. He’d used the detail of the mercuric chloride to write a profile. That profile led them to a grad student who did botanical illustrations of western plants in the area, using mercuric chloride to preserve the plants he used as samples. They made an arrest, after three years of deaths and likely more to come. Mulder had done something indisputably good for the world.

Rather than celebrate and take credit for his accomplishment, he’d sunk into a kind of despair she hadn’t seen from him before.

Again, she knocks and waits, forcing herself not to release a long sigh.

The men in the swimming pool across from their doors have turned on some music, a Lynyrd Skynyrd anthem. Some of them are singing along, and their voices are hearty, carrying across the motel courtyard—so loud they almost drown out the cicadas.

Scully glances back at them, disapproving. A drop of sweat begins to roll down her forehead, and she swipes it away with impatience.

Frustration levels rising, she knocks harder.

“Mulder,” she speaks loudly into the door. “Are you all right?”

No answer.

“Mulder,” she repeats. “Answer me, or I won’t leave.”

“Yeah?” he calls back faintly.

“Will you open up?”

“No,” comes his voice. “I told you, Scully … I just need to be alone.”

She grits her teeth. “All right,” she says. “Well, I am supposed to tell you that the motel air conditioning isn’t working and to keep an eye out for a possible tornado.”

There’s a pause.

“All right,” comes his answer.

“Are you sure you’re okay, Mulder?”

For a moment, silence. “Yeah,” his voice replies monotone, after a beat. “I’ll be fine. I just need time.”

Scully reaches out and rests her palm flat against the door.

She thinks of her palm pressed against the smooth skin of his back, her fingers splayed over his spine.

You did well. Why can’t you relax? What’s wrong with you? Let me help you.

Would her touch reassure him, she wonders? Would it cause him to pull away?

“All right,” she calls back hesitantly. “Well. You know where I am.”

Next door drowning in my own sweat, she thinks. Next door making myself sick with worry and frustration and anger.

He doesn’t answer her.

She lets her hand drop from the door and stares at the wooden barrier between them. Another drop of sweat rolls down her forehead, and it feels like her body is shedding a tear.

One of the men in the swimming pool chooses that moment to give her a long, admiring dog whistle.

“Come for a swim, honey?” he shouts. “It’s a hot one.”

Slowly she turns around to look at him, quickly taking in his mustache, round and hirsute torso, and neon blue swim trunks. “No thanks,” she calls back with distaste. She pauses, briefly weighing her duty to look out for the safety of strangers. “Excuse me,” she calls back. “Are you aware that there’s a major storm coming?”

For two seconds the entire pool of men looks back at her, slack jawed.

“I got your major storm coming right here,” he crows back, evidently grabbing his crotch underwater. His friends howl with laughter.

“O-kay,” she mutters to herself, taking the brief walk back to open her own motel door. No one can say she didn’t do her best as a doctor and a law enforcement officer to protect the public welfare.

Over the sound of the men’s guffaws, she discerns the faint rumble of thunder. She slips her key card into her room door, opens it up, and shuts the door behind her.

***

Even her silk pajamas sound too hot right now.

Groaning, she crawls on her bed, spreads out on her back, letting her legs flop open, since there is no one around to see. Maybe the nonexistent flow of air will circulate beneath her pencil skirt.

She anxiously closes her eyes and tries to listen for any hint of a sound next door. She doesn’t hear the TV set, nor the shower, nor any movement. She wonders if Mulder is lying down in his full suit on the bed, stewing in sweat and depression.

The only thing to do now, she decides, is to hand wash some laundry in the sink and hope it dries overnight. She looks down at the silk blouse she’s wearing—it might not be a terrible choice to hand wash. It’s light enough that it would dry fast.

After a few moments of consideration, she strips off her skirt and her blouse, leaving herself standing in the middle of her motel room wearing only her new, inexpensive apricot-colored bra and panties.

She’d hastily purchased this underwear ensemble at Wal-Mart this morning on the way to the police station when she realized she was soon going to run out of clean underwear. In retrospect, she should have purchased more clothes. She should have purchased a tank top and shorts, too.

She feels strangely self-conscious, walking around the room solely in her underwear. It’s a little prudish of her, she knows. It’s just not something she typically does at home, even though it should be one of the perks of living alone. She typically is more comfortable lounging in a tee shirt or pajamas—for one, she tends to get cold, so prefers to have more fabric on her body.

It feels weirder to walk around casually in her bra and panties knowing Mulder is right next door, even though there’s a wall between them.

She takes her silk blouse and one of her undershirts into the bathroom, deciding she will wash them with some of the hand soap.

As she washes, she thinks: does Mulder have enough laundry? How could he possibly? He didn’t even go to Wal-Mart. His mood had already been so low this morning. By the time their killer had been taken into custody, he was listless and sullen.

In the car, driving back to the motel, she had tried to convince him they should go out somewhere for dinner, find a pizza parlor or a bar with food. He’d declined.

“Come on,” she’d said, her voice falsely cheery in a way that came unnaturally to her. “You did good work on this case, Mulder, and it’s a hot day. Doesn’t cold beer sound good?”

“I’m not hungry.” He’d not even glanced her way.

She’d studied him from the passenger seat, thinking about the local law enforcement here in Duncan, who had treated him with suspicion throughout the case. “Did … someone say something to you?”

He hadn’t said anything for a few beats, just driving silently. “No one had to say anything,” he said. “I should have found the guy earlier. The evidence you came up with only pointed one way. I was the profiler, and I messed up.”

“What are you talking about?” She can’t understand this attitude. “If it hadn’t been for you, there wouldn’t have been an arrest.”

He said nothing for several beats, then sighed, his eyes on the road. “You don’t need to give me a pep talk, Scully. I don’t need to be cheered up,” he’d said quietly. “I don’t want to talk about it at all.”

“Mulder, I don’t see why you think you messed up…”

“Please,” he’d said. “Please show me the respect to believe me when I say I don’t want to talk about this.”

In silence she watched him as he drove, his lips drawn and his jaw tight. She wondered if she should disregard this request. If she should persist in clarifying why he was so upset. If she should insist that he have dinner with her and try to unwind.

Instead, she took his request for respect seriously.

She hadn’t said anything else about it. Because she’s someone who believes in privacy, because she values her own boundaries. Because she didn’t know what else to do.

Was it the wrong decision? Is she just a coward who tells herself she is being a respectful partner?

She raises her head from the sink to look at herself in the mirror. She looks tired and wilted, her hair in limp, sweaty curls and her face shiny. She never had dinner tonight. She hasn’t slept well for days, and the idea of good sleep tonight seems impossible. In medical school, one of her favorite instructors had been fond of saying, “You can’t provide care when you aren’t well cared for.”

She wishes, for a selfish moment, someone would worry about her wellbeing as much as she is worried about Mulder’s. But he’s been profiling, she sighs, and she knows that makes him vulnerable.

This case hasn’t been like the one with Bill Patterson, exactly, but it’s been similar in that he was so preoccupied by getting in the head of the killer that he didn’t seem to be prioritizing what is usually important to him.

Like communication, good humor, or conversation. Like his partner.

Her new bra is pinching her; the underwires dig into the sides of her breasts a little. She considers taking it off, too, but she decides she can’t quite deal with walking around the room in only her panties. It would make her feel too much like a character in Mulder’s videos.

It’s going to be okay, she tells herself. She’ll finish her laundry and try to get some rest.

Her shirts are wrung out and hung to dry in the shower, even though it feels impossible anything could ever dry in this humidity.

Then she sprawls on her bed again with a slightly dramatic exhale.

Closing her eyes, she forces herself to listen to the ambient noises around her: the laughing voices from the swimming pool, the faint thunder rumbling in the distance, the underlying whine of the cicadas.

***

She opens her eyes when she hears shouting outside. It’s not playful shouting. It’s not the sounds of raucous male bonding.

She is hearing cries of panic, of frantic disbelief. Scully has, unfortunately, been in enough emergency situations now to be able to immediately identify the difference.

She leaps off the bed and flies to the curtains. Peering out the window at the pool, her eyes land on two men dragging a limp body over the edge of the pool.

As she watches, they gather around the fallen figure. One man’s head looks up, shouting towards the rooms, “Help! Someone! We need help here!”

Her body tenses, caught in indecision. She should go right now, offer her services as a doctor.

It’s just that she’s in her bra and panties, and that can’t be easily fixed. She’s not ashamed of her body, nor is she someone who would typically let modesty interfere with practicality. But running out of her room in her underwear in front of a group of strange men is a bold move.

Her mind races through options. Her silk shirt is hanging wet. Her dirty clothes are stuffed in a laundry bag in her suitcase. She could put on her pajamas. But getting dressed would mean a loss of time, and time could be of the essence if someone needs to be resuscitated.

Scully stands in the middle of the room, willing herself to act. Right now, fast, you need to decide one way or the other.

She exhales, realizing there’s no choice, really. Her doctor instincts win every time. Someone’s life obviously trumps strangers seeing her in her panties.

Without a second’s more delay, she sprints out of the motel room. The door slams shut behind her.

***

Before she’s even run five feet into the parking lot, the man on the side of the pool visibly revives. As he sits up, there’s a groan of relief from his compatriots.

“You asshole,” one of them crows, punching his arm. “We almost called a fucking ambulance.”

Thank god, Scully thinks to herself, halting mid-stride.

She’d been prepared for the awkward resuscitation she was about to carry out, but not especially looking forward to it.

The other men should still call an ambulance at this point anyway, just to be safe, but this is something she can probably let these strangers handle themselves. Better not to get involved. Better to get back inside before she becomes an unwilling spectacle.

The man’s friends have not looked up. They are distracted by tending to their friend and making too-soon jokes about him meeting his maker. Luckily for her, she has not been spotted by anyone. Yet.

She swiftly spins and sets out on a straight and immediate path back to her room. In five seconds she can make it inside before anyone has witnessed her public foray in her lingerie. No harm done.

It’s when her hand reaches the door handle that she realizes her mistake.

She jiggles the door handle futilely anyway.

It doesn’t budge.

Of course it doesn’t budge. Because there is no key card.

She pats her hands frantically down her hips, feeling for her key card in her pocket.

Which is absurd, she realizes, because she has no pockets. And, indeed, no pants.

Her palms find only smooth, bare skin.

“No. You’ve got to be kidding me,” she says in a small, desolate voice.

Her first instinct is self-preservation: duck, go low. That way she’s not visible to the men in the pool—who have still, miraculously, failed to notice her—or to anyone else.

She instantly drops to her hands and knees and begins to crawl. Tiny rocks from the concrete walkway scratch her knees, and she feels stupid.

This is ridiculous. No one is firing a weapon at her. She’s just minimally dressed. What is she doing? Surely she can come up with a better solution.

She stops crawling and scoots on her rear end to sit back against her door, her knees up.

Someone at the swimming pool could spot her if they walked to the far side of the pool. But the men are still in a huddle, apparently discussing their friend’s near-death experience. She hopes one of them will go call a doctor, and that then ideally the whole group will go inside.

Scully brushes off some gravel from her knees. She looks up and down the corridor in both directions, trying to determine if any other guests are headed this way. Someone could easily amble down the row of rooms to see a sweaty, mostly-naked lady sitting on the ground. For now, she sees no one.

She puts her hands on her face in desperation.

How could she have done this? She managed to make an already unbearable afternoon and evening so much worse. How could she forget her key card?

How is she going to resolve this without resorting to doing something mortifying?

For a moment she sits there, fighting back the tears that are stinging her eyes, because crying would be an absurd overreaction.

A low, sustained rumble of thunder makes her look up. Right. There’s a storm coming. You can’t sit out here in your underwear. You need to recover and adjust.

This is, she tells herself, a slightly embarrassing but not insurmountable situation.

She has two possible options, as she sees them. First, she could walk to the motel office, a lengthy journey in her Wal-Mart bra and panties across an entire motel complex, walking down several outside hallways and across part of the parking lot to the front of the building.

Or… she could knock on Mulder’s door. She could use his room’s phone and try to get a motel employee to come to the room to help her.

The most sensible answer seems obvious. But she doesn’t immediately move.

It’s only Mulder. You’re adults. This isn’t anything to be self-conscious about.

She is self-conscious, though. She would be self-conscious normally, even more so when he has been acting standoffish and refusing to talk to her. But there’s nothing she can really do about it, is there?

She crawls the few feet to his room. In a horrible flash she pictures him opening the door and finding his partner in her underwear on her knees, and she tries to imagine what might go through his mind.

No. She obviously can’t do that.

Glancing both ways nervously, she stands up again, again swiping away the small rocks from her knees.

She stands very close to the door and raps sharply. There is, of course, no response.

“Mulder.” She raises her voice. “Mulder, open the door.”

“What?” His voice inside the room sounds annoyed, but annoyance like it’s buried under feet of cotton.

She scans her surroundings again anxiously, then wraps her arms around herself.

“Open the door,” she tries again. “It’s important.”

“Scully, didn’t we just talk about this?” comes his voice. “I need to be alone.”

“We’re not talking about what you need right this second. We are talking about what I need,” she hisses. “And I need you to open the damn door. Right now.”

Finally she hears him moving, which is a relief, but also causes a pit of anticipatory dread to open in her chest.

“I told you that I don’t want any pep talks,” his voice says right as she hears the sound of the latch sliding.

The door cracks open.

She registers that he is also in his underwear-checked cotton boxers and nothing else. Which maybe should make her feel better, but doesn’t, somehow.

His head drops down to take in her bra and panties, then back up. His eyes widen.

“Let … me … in,” she growls.

“If this is your version of a pep talk,” he says, round-eyed, “I have to say, I don’t hate it.”

Scully swiftly pushes her way past him into the room.

“Scully…?”

She doesn’t stop walking. She marches straight to his bed, planning to appropriate his bedspread to cover herself. To her horror and disbelief, all of his bedding is missing. She freezes and whirls to look at him, aghast.

He’s still staring at her, his mouth slightly open.

“Where’s your bedding?” she sputters.

“I … uh… threw it off the bed,” he says, gesturing to the other side of the bed. “I spilled melted ice all over it.”

She hurries over to the heap of covers on the ground and picks up a corner of the top sheet from the pile. It is, indeed, wet.

“Why didn’t you hang it up?” she cries in indignation. “How will it dry in a pile like this?”

“Scully,” Mulder says, “I don’t mean to change the subject, but why aren’t you wearing clothes?”

She is trying to extricate his top sheet from the tangled pile of discarded bedding, but she glares at him.

He snaps his eyes guiltily to her face, redirecting them from elsewhere on her body. Flustered, she turns her attention to pulling on the sheet again, trying to pretend she didn’t notice this.

“Uh, there’s a group of men out by the pool,” she mumbles, successfully tugging the sheet out. “You can probably see them out the window…” She begins to wind the sheet around her, tucking the top in like a too-long towel. It’s damp and probably slightly see-through, but better than nothing. Having something covering her makes her relax a little.

“Men by the pool…?” He flies to the window. “Jesus. Are you okay?”

“What?” she says, distractedly smoothing her sheet. “Yes, of course.”

“Did something happen, Scully?” His tone is so unexpectedly intense she looks up.

“Oh,” she says, stepping towards him as she realizes his concern. “Oh, no. I’m fine. I’m fine. Nothing like that.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure,” she assures him. “Just embarrassed. From my window I witnessed what appeared to be a medical emergency among those men at the pool, and I ran out of the room without my key card … or my clothes.”

He blinks, visibly relaxing, but his eyebrows draw slightly in confusion. “Why did you leave the room without your clothes?”

She sinks down on his bed, sitting carefully so that her sheet doesn’t tug down too far. “It’s so hot,” she explains delicately, trying to decide whether to cross her legs or not. “I was … trying to cool down in my room. So I was underdressed when events unfolded.”

He nods like he is trying to wrap his mind around this. As he does, she can’t help but notice that he, too, looks as worse for wear as she does—his temples damp, his face flushed. She also observes a slight sheen over the musculature of his chest, arms and shoulders.

“You appear somewhat underdressed yourself,” she adds, gesturing towards his body without thinking.

He looks down at his bare chest and back up at her again, his lip curling up into a little smile. “Yeah,” he says. “I guess that’s true.”

Scully finds herself overwhelmed with relief to see him smiling, after days of glum and taciturn Mulder.

And she can’t help but think he looks very appealing like this. Underdressed and boyishly disheveled. Like he’s exerted himself. Like he’s just finished having sex. Like he could be coaxed back into bed again.

Guilty for her prurient thoughts, she clears her throat and gestures to the pile of bedding. “Care for a bedspread to preserve your modesty?”

He makes a face. “No offense, but a blanket in this temperature sounds awful.”

She sighs. “Yes, I don’t recommend it,” she says, adjusting the edge of the sheet over her chest.

“Well, you don’t need to worry about that for my sake,” he says glibly. She could swear his eyes cut again to where the sheet rises and falls over her breasts, but it’s too fast to track. She scoffs, feeling her face grow warmer yet. He walks over and lifts the receiver of the motel phone. “I assume you need to call the motel office?”

When she opens her mouth to answer, she’s interrupted by a massive thunderclap so dramatic it seems to rattle the glass in the windows.

They blink at one another in startled surprise.

“Huh,” Mulder says. “That’s attention-getting.” He hangs up the phone and crosses to look out the window, drawing back the curtain all the way.

Just as he does, rain explodes from the sky with a sudden whoosh, pounding over the cars in the parking lot and the swimming pool. The remaining swimmers yelp and grab their cooler and towels, taking off for cover. Visible heavy waves of rain roll across the parking lot towards them. “Looks like pool time is over,” Mulder says.

Scully clutches her sheet to her chest and hops off the bed, hurrying over to stand next to him and peer out at the abrupt deluge. “This must be the promised storm,” she says quietly.

He hums in agreement, and they both watch the hard rain batter the motel parking lot.

They’re standing just close enough that the surface of her bare shoulder brushes against the hair on his upper arm.

This touch, this tiniest contact, sends a shiver zigzagging down her limbs. It dissolves into a wave of desire so unreasonably strong it almost buckles her knees. She presses her lips together quickly to keep from reacting.

Just as she's wondering if he's noticed, he steps away. He moves forward to place his hand on the window, like he just wants to see the storm better.

So much about this feels humiliating she can't quite parse it out. Her regret for the sudden loss of contact. His complete unawareness that anything out of the ordinary has happened. Her shameful lack of professionalism and dignity.

She balls her left hand into a tight fist.

“Maybe rain will cool things off,” Mulder says. He is making conversation in such a casual, oblivious tone of voice that she wishes she could bolt out of the room and keep running.

Instead she watches rain aggressively punch through the surface of the now-abandoned swimming pool. Something resembling steam seems to be curling over the surface of the water, like the heat hasn’t given up completely yet.

She feels like she is a prey animal who has been hypnotized by a predator into inaction.

“I should call the office,” she replies flatly.

“You know, I wouldn’t bother. I don’t think anyone from that office is going to be coming to your room any time soon,” Mulder advises, eyeing her. “Not with all this rain. And apparently a twister coming.”

She presses her eyes closed. “I must be cursed.”

“Hang out here for a while,” he suggests.

She’s silent for a moment, thinking about this mystifying offer. It’s the only real possibility, as awkward as it might be.

Still, she feels she should raise the obvious question. He’s seemed so normal, so much like his old self, since she’s come inside the room. But she hasn’t forgotten his behavior over the past week.

“Are you sure?” she asks carefully. “You don’t feel like you need to be alone?”

He watches the rain out the window in silence. “That would be just like me, wouldn’t it?” he says after a beat. “I feel like being alone, so I send you out in the rain? By yourself, no clothes? What a partner.”

His words confuse her. Is he joking? She tries to read his face. “That doesn’t sound like you at all, actually.”

“You’re welcome to hang out here,” he says again, shrugging.

“All right,” she agrees. “I will, then.” She looks down at her sheet wrap dress, at the apricot bra straps peeking out from the top. Sweat is beading in her modest cleavage. Mulder had it right before: it’s too hot to be wrapped up in a blanket, even a bedsheet.

He either reads her mind or notices what part of her body she’s looking at. “Oh, can I offer you some clothing?” He walks towards his suitcase.

“I don’t recall you going to the laundromat,” she says warily. “How could you possibly have anything clean left to loan me?”

He throws his suitcase open, and its contents are as haphazard as she expects. “I didn’t promise you clean clothing,” he says, digging through wrinkled work shirts and pants. “Okay.” He pulls out a white undershirt. “I only slept in this. Minimally dirty. Low risk. Do you want to try it?”

He’s extending it to her, and she peers down at the white fabric. “Are you sure? You don’t need it yourself?”

“Of the two of us, you seem to need it more,” he says, his lips lifting in another small smile. “You being in your underwear seems to present more challenges.”

She concedes this point with a nod, and she carefully takes the shirt from his hand. Unfurling it, she examines it closely. It looks fairly clean. Every instinct she has tells her to smell it, but she restrains herself.

“All right,” she says cautiously. “I’ll accept this. Thank you.”

“Never say I never gave you anything.”

She hesitates. How should she change into it? She could go into his bathroom, but that seems a little overly fussy. Making a fast, bold decision, she abruptly unfastens the sheet and lets it drop to the floor.

Caught off guard, Mulder spins to stare at the wall.

“It’s not a big deal, Mulder,” Scully says as she pulls the tee shirt over her head. “You just saw me in this same bra and panty set a few minutes ago.”

“Maybe it’s a big deal every time,” he jokes lightly to the painting of buffalo on the wall of his room.

She pulls the shirt over her body, and it feels good, soft and cool cotton. It also smells good—not clean like detergent, but not sweaty either. Like him: the smell of his coat, his couch, or his car. As she inhales, she’s suddenly overcome by it, that spicy, earthy personal eau de Mulder—that slight undercurrent of cloves—a smell she would instinctively recognize anywhere.

She’s shocked by the jolt of arousal it provokes in her. It’s almost dizzying.

Get yourself together, she admonishes herself. She isn’t wearing enough clothes for the kind of indulgence in lust her body has embarked on this evening.

His shirt hangs loosely on her, covering her panties and reaching below the curve of her ass, but just barely. Somehow it almost feels more indecent than the bra and panties—like she’s just walking around in an obscenely short skirt.

“Better?” he asks the buffalo painting.

“Better,” she says, tugging anxiously downward on the edges of the shirt, trying to stretch it a little.

He turns around again and scans her quickly, a strange little brightness in his gaze. “Hey,” he says, “that’s a great look on you.”

“Being half nude?” she says crisply.

“I’m an optimist,” he says. “I prefer to think of it as half dressed.”

With an amused snort, she sits back down on the bed, pressing her thighs together in an attempt at preserving some dignity. He bends to zip his suitcase back up, and the ropes of muscle on his back flex and slide like ripples on a river.

He is so beautiful. He is so unfairly beautiful without his shirt.

The thick heat in the room suddenly seems more oppressive. She sighs. “Do you have any secret fans squirrelled away in here, Mulder?”

“No,” he says, looking up from the suitcase. He regards her for a moment, and she tries not to let his gaze rattle her. “I do have a trick for cooling off, though.”

“A trick … for cooling off?”

“Yeah,” he says. “Just a little thing.” He gives her a playful side eye. “You want to try it?”

“Will I regret it?”

“I don’t think so,” he says. He studies her. “Do you trust me?”

There’s another clap of thunder in the distance as she considers the answer.