Random Truths

Their case is going nowhere. They’ve been working without a break. She’s exhausted, grumpy, her feet hurt from standing through too many autopsies. She doesn’t argue with him.

It’s the first week of January. The sling around his shoulder only just came off. Christmas is in the past. She doesn’t question the logic of it all. Not today. Not behind her closed apartment door on a day with no work to be done.

He sits opposite her at the breakfast table with his hands wrapped around a steaming mug of coffee and tells her stories that make her laugh. His socked feet nudge hers under the table until she hooks an ankle around his shin. When she looks at him, his eyes are shining with a feeling she feels tugging at her own heart.

He hasn't shaved this morning. She hasn't had time to put her makeup on. It feels right this way.

"What do you want to do today?" he asks, once all the coffee is gone.

She thinks of autopsy bays and dry plane air and their dusty, dark basement. "Nothing," she says. “Anything.”

Anything means walking without a purpose, without a destination. The air is crisp and cool. It snowed over night. He stays close to her the way he always does and she takes his hand in hers. Of course he isn't wearing gloves. She regrets putting her own on, but her palm knows the feel of his, skin on skin, even from the very few times they've done this before.

Anything means linking their fingers together as they stop to watch puppies playing in the park. She leans into him and breathes deep, long breaths to catch his scent over that of freshly fallen snow.

Anything means warming up in a small café. He brushes hot chocolate from the corner of her mouth, his eyes tracking the movement of his thumb. She wouldn't mind if he used his lips instead, but she can count their kisses since midnight on New Year's on two hands and they're in public and they haven't talked about any of it. Maybe they're finally starting that conversation. She wouldn't mind it if they did.

Anything means catching his hand before he can pull it back. For a moment, his eyes are curious, then light up with a smile that warms her to her core.

It means sitting side by side on her couch, her head on his shoulder. It is lunch ordered from their favorite place. Their favorite. There's a them. Him and her. Mulder and Scully. The two of them, a unit, connection forged through more than a shared mission to fix what is wrong with the world.

It means taking the time to wonder: If they hadn't met the way she did, if she'd been Doctor Scully and he a successful profiler, would they be here now? Would they have gotten here sooner? There is no universe without some version of this in it, at least not one she ever wants to think about.

"I like my gift," she tells him.

"It was a selfish gift," he admits.

She leans over and brushes her lips over his. "I'd like to give you something too," she says. "If you want it. And it's entirely selfish as well."

“I’ll love it.”

“You don’t even know what it is.”

His fingers play with hers where they’re resting on his thigh. “Tell me, then.”

“Stay,” she says.

And he stays.

He gives her the day. She gives him the night. Or maybe they give it to each other. Maybe with the things that matter, it's the same thing anyway. Maybe it’s all just time. The best present she could ever have imagined.

And one more gift wrapped in each other's arms and tied with a kiss: three words they meant to give each other long ago, but finally the time feels right. Maybe the time was always right. Maybe it will always be right.