No one ever suspects the butterfly

“Do you have your shopping list?” Scully asks as he starts the car.

He pulls the folded scrap of paper out of the chest pocket of his white t-shirt. “Right here,” he replies, eyes darting over to her for one more look as he holds out the list.

She takes it, catching his eyes momentarily. “Why do you keep looking at me like that?” she asks.

I want to suck your toes. “You look nice today, that’s all.”

“Oh. Well, thank you.”

Scully can probably tell he’s desperate for her; she can read him like a dog-eared, yellowed paperback. He’s simultaneously grateful for her sharp instincts and embarrassed by his carnal desires. He hasn’t gotten laid in four years, and he fears he’ll be too eager when the time comes. As it is, he can barely believe she’s let him have even the smallest glimpses of her as a sexual being. She’s intoxicating, and he’s dizzy with the knowledge that this beautiful, brilliant, downright edible woman actually wants him. Him, a mortal man of aliens and bad ties and a porn collection that’s gradually becoming least seventy-five percent redheads. A man without a bed.

Hence their Saturday morning pilgrimage to the shrine where all new couples journey to find furnishings, low prices, and themselves.

“So, we’re looking for one tall bookshelf, a locking filing cabinet, a bed, and two night tables,” Scully reads. She refolds the paper and reaches across him to tuck it back into his shirt pocket. “That’s clearly not all going to fit in this car,” she notes.

“I’ll get the bigger stuff delivered,” he says.

It’s only a twenty minute drive from Mulder’s place, and they have the air-conditioning on. Mulder is starting to relax; it’s been a long time since he’s had a partner, in the domestic sense, and he’d forgotten that it makes the mundane more bearable.

Scully clears her throat almost imperceptibly. “I’m proud of you, by the way.”

“Really? Why?” Mulder asks.

“You managed to get rid of a lot of stuff,” she says, turning up the dial on the car’s air conditioner. “And organization is very clearly not your strong suit, so progress should be acknowledged and celebrated.”

“Yippee,” Mulder deadpans.

“You know, it’s odd; we’ve known each other for all these years and I never asked… why don’t you have a bed, Mulder?”

There it is, the question he knew would come up at some point. He clears his throat, grips the steering wheel a little tighter. “I, uh… I lived with someone, around ‘91. Another agent, actually. We were together for a while, and then one day she took some assignment in Europe and that was that. I got rid of everything that was hers, and that, uh, included the bed.” Technically our bed, he thinks. He winces. He’s never talked to Scully about Diana before, and he wonders if she’ll be upset that he was withholding such a large piece of personal information.

Scully is quiet. “I’m sorry,” she says softly. “That’s… I didn’t know.”

“I’m sorry I never mentioned it,” Mulder says. “It’s not like it’s some big painful secret. I just… don’t really think about her anymore.”

“It’s alright,” Scully says. “I think it’s best for these kinds of things to come up naturally. And… I was dating someone when we met,” Scully confesses. “We broke up as soon as I got back from Bellefleur.”

Mulder looks at her quickly. “Really? Why?”

She furrows her brow. “Multiple reasons, but primarily I realized that this job, my assignment, was bigger than I’d anticipated. And the things you and I went through together, the things I’d seen… when I was honest with myself, I didn’t want to be tied down to him. To have to go home and have this man ask me how my day was, as though he could ever understand even half of what we do.”

“So you chose the job over him,” Mulder muses.

“In essence… I chose you,” Scully points out. “Whether I knew it then or not. I’d never be able to turn my back on you.”

Mulder exhales slowly. He’s strangely moved.

“Take a left at the next light,” Scully prompts softly. “And yes, I do realize the irony in breaking things off with a man because of his normalcy, only to continue trying to date so-called ‘normal’ men.”

Mulder shrugs. “No, it makes sense. Maybe he just wasn’t right for you, but the next normal guy could be, right?”

“Right,” Scully sighs. “Einstein’s definition of insanity. Doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results.”

“I’ve been led to believe that being with me is another type of insanity,” Mulder points out. “And objectively, I can’t disagree.”

“You do make me crazy,” Scully agrees, voice low. “But that’s not always a bad thing.” He feels her small hand squeeze his thigh. “And I fully intend to return the favor.”

Mulder lets out a quiet groan, hands sweaty on the steering wheel. “You planning on giving me some roadside assistance, Agent Scully? Because I’m gonna need it if you keep doing that.”

She removes her hand, tucks her hair behind her ear. “I didn’t do anything,” she says innocently.

“Uh huh.” He pulls into the IKEA parking lot. “Well, we’re here. You ready?”

“As ready as a person can be for a labyrinthian furniture store on a muggy Saturday,” she replies.

-

“This is fucking ridiculous,” Mulder says from his spot on the bedroom floor, surrounded by scattered pieces of a ‘HOLLEBY’ bedside table. “These instructions are useless and-” he flips through the booklet, “-thirty-two pages long, Jesus.”

Scully doesn’t respond; her eyes are glued to her own manual as she assembles a drawer from the second of the two nightstands. “Shh,” she hushes him softly. “I’m concentrating.”

“How have you managed to put any of these pieces together?” he asks, scooting across the floor to her. “There aren’t even words, just vague illustrations.”

She has a screw between her lips as she lines up two of the wood pieces. “I took wood shop in high school,” she says around the metal pin. She removes it and inserts it into a pre-drilled hole. “I guess that was some kind of preparation for assembling flatpack furniture?”

“That’s adorable,” Mulder says, rising to open a window. The room is stuffy with the day’s heat, and his t-shirt is glued to his back. “Do you still have any of the things you made in class?”

“The step stool in my kitchen,” she replies. “And my mom might have some things I’ve forgotten about.”

He casually strips off his sweaty t-shirt and tosses it in the laundry basket. “Remind me to look at that stool the next time we’re at your place,” he says. “Also I’m gonna order a pizza, you interested?”

Scully looks up at him then and is seemingly surprised by the absence of his shirt. “It’s hot in here,” Mulder explains, almost defensive.

“Oh, I’m not complaining,” Scully says, eyes shamelessly traveling his torso. “And I’m always interested.”

“Are we still talking about pizza here, or…”

“Make my half one with everything, please,” she says, attention returning to her project.

“Wait a minute,” he says, dropping to his knees next to her on the carpet. “I’m not done here.” He leans in and presses his mouth to the juncture of her neck and shoulder, tasting the salt on her skin. How she can still smell so good on a sticky June day, he doesn’t know; but he wants to lick her entire body.

“Mulder,” she sighs, putting down her screwdriver, “You’re distracting me.”

“That’s the idea,” he says, lips wandering up her neck and behind her ear. He flicks his tongue against her earlobe. “Forget the furniture, honey,” he says, all hot breath and lust. “We don’t need it for what I have in mind.”

Suddenly she’s facing him, looping her arms around his neck. “I’m doing this for you,” she purrs. “Do you think I like putting together IKEA furniture? No one likes it, Mulder. It’s like a multidimensional jigsaw puzzle.”

He pulls her onto his lap. “Oh, but I think you do,” he says, nibbling her ear. “You like being capable Doctor Scully, in charge of things… showing me what those hands can do.”

She leans in, licking his full lower lip. “Not everything is about you, Mulder,” she says, pressing a scorching kiss to his mouth. “I’m just doing my coworker a favor.”

“Is that what they call this nowadays?” he asks, hands clasping her hips as she grinds down on his lap.

3. The arrivals to Mars were staggered. NASA was among the mission that arrived first, taking the keys to the place from the engineers who’d built it, who’d stuck around doing maintenance until the next crew was there. They set up quickly, as they were trained, and began working on their seemingly endless list of tasks.

Scully performed routine medical exams on the crew, but most of her tasks centered around soil analysis and botany work. Most of her time was spent tending the plants in the greenhouse, away from all the other more glamorous researchers in the main structure.

They fell into a routine, which only got disrupted briefly when the next arrivals set down. ESA was among them, with Dr. Hodge, and Dr. Mulder. The new team smiled, and shook the crews’ hands as they greeted them, before everyone returned to their daily tasks. They seem friendly enough, Scully thought, although she still did not understand the need for a psychologist. Meeting with him would only take time away from her other tasks. If her heart began to race a little bit faster at the sight of him, she ignored it.

4. “Dr. Scully, I’m sure you’re aware that I’ve been asked to meet with each of the members of the crew. Get a sense of how they’re feeling, how it’s affect them to be here.”

She fidgeted in her seat, trying not to look at him, with his glasses and his ledger, and the thumbing at his bottom lip that he did when he was thinking. “I’m sure you’re aware I do the same thing, but with physicals.”

He chuckled. “Well, I’m glad you’re familiar with the concept. It’ll work the same way as the physical. I’ll ask you some questions, answer as honestly as you feel comfortable with.”

“Alright.” She glanced at her watch, wanting the thirty minutes to tick by as fast as possible.

“How have you bonded with the crew in the past few months. Is there anyone you feel particularly drawn to?”

---

She hadn’t seen him alone since their “Monday” session. She was certain that she’d fucked it up. She hadn’t given him enough of an answer to any of the questions, and she was sure that the report he sent back to NASA just had a big red “X” on it for noncooperation, and she’d get sent back. She wouldn’t even mind that, it was lonely here. But getting sent back early would be a black mark on her record, a sign she couldn’t do her job, and she couldn’t risk that. She soldiered on, tried to ignore the loneliness creeping in, or how Dr. Mulder smiled at her at dinner, anytime someone made a joke, like he wanted to share in it with her.

His first physical was scheduled for their “Friday”, and she was not looking forward to it. Suddenly, she’d be the doctor, and he’d be the patient, and even worse was, if he felt the same way she did, it couldn’t work. They were each other’s doctors, and each other’s patients. She didn’t even know how HIPAA would prosecute that. Not to mention, she was pretty sure she wasn’t the only one who felt for him on this base. The one thing Mars had in abundance was lonely women.

He showed up promptly in her medical bay at eleven hundred hours, and after letting him change into a hospital gown, they began.

“I have your measurements here,” she said. “It looks like the ship’s doctor looked over you two weeks ago en route, but I’m going to retake them just in case there was a change with your gravity adjustment. You can step on the scale.”

“I knew I shouldn’t have eaten before this.”

He looked at her, expectantly, and she forced herself to give him a weak smile, before furrowing her brow and taking down his height and weight.

“Well?” he asked.

“No change. That’s good. You can take a seat on the lab table, I’m just going to take your vitals.”

She started to unfurl the blood pressure cuff and put it on him, and took down it’s readouts. Then she took out a heart rate monitor and stethoscope. 

“Wait, you’re checking my breathing manually?” he asked. “On the ship we had a machine to do it.”

“We had one here too,” she griped. “But there was a problem with the cargo hold, and they were worried about it returning inaccurate results. I’m just doing it myself until they can send a new one, or have the old fixed. Don’t worry, I was trained old school anyway. Sit up.”

He hesitantly sat up straight, held out his finger for her to clip with the monitor. The pinging from the monitor started going off steadily, and she watched it for a moment, before walking around him to listen to his breathing.

“Breathe in deep,” she said, placing a hand on his shoulder to steady herself.

He did so, albeit a bit shakily. Not much to worry about, but she’d keep an eye on it. She listened to his chest for a little while longer, hearing the thumping of his heart go faster and faster. She glanced up at his face, staring straight ahead at the wall with steely determination, and listened again. Still pounding.

She pulled away, and went to check the monitor’s results on her computer. Steady. Then a quick increase. Which stayed fast and uneven until... just a second ago, when she’d pulled away. Then it had begun to decrease.

“Anything wrong?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Your pulse was... a bit fast.”

She glanced at him, seeing his face go pale. “Nothing to worry about, completely natural as people adjust to Mars. But with the mission requirements, I’d like you to just sit there for a few more minutes. We’ll keep an eye on it in the next few weeks as well.”

He nodded, dejectedly. They sat in silence for a few moments, neither one wanting to speak. She was staring at the screen, as the readouts were coming in. His pulse rate was still too high. She could see him bouncing his leg, and assumed it was now from discomfort.

“Why don’t you tell me about yourself,” she asked. “Why don’t you have a British accent?”

5. They warmed to each other.

It took a few weeks, but they did. After getting through the initial awkwardness of being attracted to your doctor, they became friends.

It was still awkward. His pulse rate was too high when she stood too close to him, and she still didn’t want to talk about ‘her feelings about the crew’, but when it was just them, not Dr. Scully and Dr. Mulder, but just them, in no-name-needed conversations, at dinner, in personal hours, in relaxed time, it was nice.

And then. And then. And then...

One night, they were sitting on the floor of her quarters, watching Lord of the Rings because he was too scared of her horror movies, and she hated his stupid cult science fiction, eating that freeze-dried ice cream you can get at any museum gift shop.

“How did you even get this?” she asked. “They don’t even send freeze-dried ice cream with astronauts, they never have. This is just a marketing thing, because freeze-dried spaghetti is gross.”

He shrugged. “I requested it.” 

“You requested they send freeze-dried ice cream?”

“Yep. I like it.”

“Any other dessert, you could have requested...” she started laughing, the kind of laugh that made her lean further and further into his shoulder.

“Hey, I didn’t hear you complaining when I offered it.”

“You’re so weird.”

“That’s it,” he said, trying to take her foil package away.

“No, don’t, stop! I’m sorry! I’m so grateful!”

He didn’t, though. He wrestled her to the floor, trying to peel her fingers away from the package, before they realized what they were doing. He was on top of her, arms, bracketing her head. And all the blood drained out of his face, and headed south.

He knew that she knew how he felt. She was a physician after all, he was certain she’d picked up on his less-than discreet symptoms of falling in love. Especially as it had raised some alarms with how high his pulse had spiked when she was around. But this... this was whole new territory. And his whole new territory was currently pressed up against her whole new territory, and growing very quickly in size and... well let’s just say he was pretty sure this wasn’t what they’d meant when they sent him to study human reactions on Mars.

She’d stopped laughing, and he could tell she was realizing the same thing. That this... here, between them, it shouldn’t happen. It couldn’t happen. Slowly, she let go of the ice cream package, and slowly, he set it down next to him, so he could place his hands on either side of her, and push himself up into a sitting position. Maybe make some kind of awkward excuse, and they can go back to not talking about anything. But he didn’t move, just stayed there, on top of her, staring into her eyes. And then, with her free hand, she grabbed his neck, and pulled him down, hard, into a bruising kiss.

---

The next morning, he awoke before the wake up call, still curled around her in bed. As bad as it would be to leave, he knew if he was caught it would be even worse. He slowly removed himself from the bed, and began to get dressed again, hoping to not wake her. Just as he was jumping around, trying to put on his pants, he heard a small voice emerge from the blankets.

“We can’t do this again.”

Something in his chest crumbled, but he nodded, even though he knew she couldn’t see him, and left.

---

He didn’t talk to her for a week. Allegedly, she had some meetings to attend, and so another doctor, newly arrived, did his physical.

Usually, before it happened, they would eat dinner together, in one of their rooms. But now, she usually ate with the other researchers, and he would get his food and eat in his quarters. 

But that night, as he was gathering his food from the pantry, he heard someone ask:

“Why would they do this?”

“It’s their call. I’m not going to go against it.” That voice was definitely Scully’s. He paused, pretending to look at the packs on the shelf so he could hear what she was saying. “My work hasn’t panned out. It happens sometimes, it won’t be the last time. I’m just happy I got to work here, and I’m happy someone else will get the chance to do so as well.”

“What?!” he said, aloud, emerging from the pantry. All heads turned to him, as she shot him a look. “What are you talking about?”

“Dr. Scully is being sent home,” Da Silva said. “Well, eventually. Earlier than expected.”

“Why?!”

Scully glared at him. “They have a promising researcher who they want to give a turn to. My work with soil analysis hasn’t been providing useful enough conclusions and they want to give them a turn. I’ll be leaving with the next supply ship, in a couple weeks.”

“Is there any way they’d change their minds?” He didn’t even care at this point how he sounded. That is was too personal.

She shrugged. “Unless some miraculous happens, no. And it would have to be miraculous miraculous. Truly unbelievable.”

He felt a pang in his chest, as he slowly took a seat. The others talked for the remainder of meal time, the conversation turning from Scully’s leaving to Dr. Park’s three year old’s birthday party. Eventually, they slowly trickled out of the common area, heading to bed, and on their way out, he caught Scully’s arm.

“We need to talk.” He pulled her down the hall, into the room that had served as his office.

“We don’t. If this is about the other night,” she said, as he shut the door. “It was just a rush of emotions. Loneliness. We should just forget it because we’d be in deep shit if anyone found out.”

“Bullshit. It was deeper than that, and you know it.”

She glared at the floor, unable to even look at him. “Okay, say that it was. What do we do about it?”

“We could be discreet. We wouldn’t tell anyone else.”

“Mulder, I’m leaving in three weeks. There’s nothing that could convince them to let me stay. And if you got involved with me, who knows what they’d do to you.”

“They don’t have to know.”

“Even if they didn’t, I’m leaving. Why can’t you get that? Your mission is going on for another two years. We wouldn’t see each other until then. You just want to have an email relationship?"

He looked at her, dead seriousness in his eyes. “If that was all I could get, it would be worth it.”

She glared at him, but blinked faster like she was trying to hold back tears. “I should go.”

She turned to the door, and put her hand on the handle. Without turning around, she said. “Maybe. If I wasn’t leaving, maybe we could try it.“

But they both knew that wouldn’t matter, and she walked out the door, leaving him feeling more alone than he’d felt since he arrived.

---

He didn’t see much of Scully from there on out. For two weeks, she worked diligently on her tasks, making the most of the time she had left. He knew how she must be feeling. Not only was her time cut short, but it also would look terrible for her career to be the one chosen to go home.

They only interacted once, while she was suiting up to go take samples on the surface and she needed help getting in her suit. He was the only one available at the time. They didn’t speak, but he lightly squeezed her hand through the glove, sure she wouldn’t feel it.

---

They got word the supply mission had an altered course, giving it a landing date two days later than scheduled. Scully was pleased to have the extra time, but in some ways felt like it was dragging out the inevitable. 

She worked late one night, less than a week before her scheduled departure, doing the same soil analysis she’d done a thousand times. Made up the slides, looked through the microscope, made her notes, moved on. There was one set of plants that was working much better in the soil than the others. She figured it was just a fluke, maybe less radiation in the soil for some reason, but when she ran her tests, it hit her like a bolt of lightning why.

Her first call was to NASA. Well, less of a call. More of a frantic e-mail. Usually, she’d stick around the communication station, wait for the response to come in, but she couldn’t help it. She ran through the compound, past the CNSA barracks, past the CSA barracks, past the NASA barracks, through labs and hallways and common areas, until she reached the ESA bunks. She through open Mulder’s door, and shook him awake in bed.

“Wh-wha-what?” he said, breathing hard, groggy and disoriented.

She kissed him, and suddenly, he was incoherent for a different reason.

“Wha- what’s going on?”

“I’m staying.”

“What?!” he grinned.

“Well, it’s not official. But they’d be idiots to not grant my request. I’m staying.”

“How are you so sure?”

“Bio-matter. I found it in a soil sample. Somehow it didn’t get freeze-fried like everything else in that desert outside. I ran about a thousand tests on it. It’s definitely it! It’s bio-matter.”

“From where?” he asked, his tired brain about three steps behind hers.

She grinned down at him. “Mulder, do you believe in the existence of extra terrestrials?”

His eyes bulged.

“Because you will in a minute.”

“Holy shit,” he breathed. “You’re staying. You’re definitely staying.”

“I am,” she said, a hint of a middle-school squeal in her voice.

“And that means...” he began, not sure if now was the time to bring it up, with her on the brink of becoming a legend.

She answered him by grabbing the sides of his face, and kissing the wind out of him. It ended before he could get his bearings.

“I have to go, the confirmation should come through any minute.” 

She rose, and ran for the door, before turning back one more time to kiss him, giggle excitedly, kiss him again, and then leave.