Milkshakes at Midnight

By Brandon D. Ray
publius@avalon.net


DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT:  Do not archive at gossamer; I've already sent
it there.  Anywhere else is fine, so long as my name stays on it and
no money changes hands.

FEEDBACK:  Go ahead; knock yourself out.

Ephemeral: *FEEDBACK*publius@avalon.net

SPOILER STATEMENT:  Millennium; small ones for "Milagro", "The
Unnatural", "How the Ghosts Stole Christmas" and "Fight the Future"

RATING:  PG

CONTENT STATEMENT:  MSR.  ScullyAngst.

CLASSIFICATION:  VRA

SUMMARY:   Post-ep for "Millennium".  Yeah, yeah, everyone's writing
Kissfic, and I had to get in on the fun. :)

THANKS:  To Brynna, Jen, Sharon & Trixie, for beta duty in the middle
of the night. :)

DISCLAIMER:  In my dreams...


Milkshakes at Midnight

by Brandon D. Ray


All over the city -- all over the world -- people are celebrating
tonight.  In taverns and hotel ballrooms, in living rooms and night
clubs, in countless other venues, people are celebrating.  They're
sipping champagne and drinking beer, dancing and singing and cracking
jokes.  They're sharing warm companionship with their friends and
loved ones, and they're mixing together in huge, unruly crowds of
happy revelers.

Mulder and I wound up at Denny's.

I'm not quite sure how that happened -- and I was even the one driving
for once.  Between his injuries and the Tylenol #3 he'd been given at
the hospital, my partner was in no shape to drive, and so I took the
wheel, intending to drop him at his apartment and then head for home.
The next thing I knew, however, I was maneuvering through the parking
lot of one of my least favorite family restaurants, and a moment later
Mulder was guiding me up to the entrance with his hand at the small of
my back, as always.

Except that it wasn't as always, of course.  Something very important
changed, back there in that hospital waiting room.

At least, I think it changed.

I hope it did.

I think I hope it did.

We haven't spoken since leaving the hospital, of course.  Oh, no, not
us.  That would be too easy.  That would be too simple.  That would be
too --

"I recommend the fries."

I glance up from the menu that I haven't really been reading, to see
my partner looking at me from across the table.  His own menu sits
unopened in front of him, and he has a slight smile on his face.

"The fries?" I ask.  Not for lack of anything better to say, of
course.  After the case we just finished, and most especially after
that brief interlude at the hospital, I have plenty of things I could,
should and want to say.  But for some reason, those two words are all
that come out.

Mulder nods solemnly, a twinkle in his eye.  "Yeah," he says.  "The
fries.  Be sure to ask for them extra crisp."  He glances up past my
shoulder, and adds, "Isn't that right, Sylvia?"

I turn far enough to see a young woman standing behind me, looking at
Mulder with a friendly smile on her face.  He's smiling back -- and
why am I not surprised to find that Mulder knows the name of a third
shift waitress at a random Denny's in Alexandria?  Before I can say
anything, he adds, "Two orders of fries, Sylvia.  Extra crisp.  And a
couple of chocolate shakes."

I raise an eyebrow at him; only Mulder would order a chocolate
milkshake in the middle of winter.  He turns his smile from the
waitress to me, and says, "It's New Year's Eve, Scully.  My family
always had milkshakes at midnight -- it was a tradition.  Besides, we
deserve to cut loose a little, don't you think?"  And his smile
broadens.

Oh, my.  This is not the first time Mulder has ever smiled at me, of
course -- not even close.  He's smiled at me countless times in the
past six years, to the point where I've got all of his various smiles
catalogued and indexed in my mind.  A smile for every occasion, and an
occasion for every smile.  But there's something about this particular
smile ... something that's making my stomach do flipflops ....

"Scully," he says, very softly, leaning forward and reaching across
the table with his good arm to take my hand -- and suddenly I'm
terrified.  I don't know why, or of what, but I am.  And it must show
in my face or posture or something, because Mulder immediately
releases my hand and pulls back.

Damn it!  Why do I do things like that?

I want to be here, I remind myself.  I must want to be here --
otherwise I would have dropped Mulder at his place and be halfway to
Georgetown by now.

And, yes, I also wanted him to kiss me, back in that hospital waiting
room.  I was standing there watching the seconds count down to
midnight, trying not to think about the Biblical prophecy Mark Johnson
and the others had been trying to invoke -- and I was suddenly acutely
aware that Mulder was looking not at the television, but at me.  And
there was no doubt in my mind -- none whatsoever -- what he was
thinking about.

So I turned towards him, and he leaned down and gave me one of the
most profoundly moving and meaningful kisses of my life.  And let's
not kid yourself, Dana:  it wasn't a sexy, arousing kiss, and it
didn't last all that long.  What made it special and important and,
yes, earthshattering, was the person giving it.  It was because it was
Mulder -- and while by some standards it was pretty tame ... for us,
as a first kiss, it was just right.  It was perfect.

It was perfect.

So what, exactly, is the problem here?  Why am I suddenly so scared?

My thoughts are interrupted by the return of Sylvia, the waitress,
with our french fries and chocolate shakes.  Suddenly a little junk
food seems like a remarkably good idea; I haven't eaten since lunch,
other than some vile coffee from the hospital's vending machines while
I waited for Mulder to finish up with the doctor.  I reach for the
ketchup bottle --

Only to find Mulder's hand arriving there at the same moment.

For a few seconds, I don't know what to do.  I'm paralyzed; literally
paralyzed.  Mulder's hand is wrapped around the ketchup bottle, and my
own hand is covering his.  His skin is warm and slightly rough, like
raw silk.

Again -- oh, my.

To my surprise and embarrassment, I realize that I'm blushing.  I pull
my hand back and gesture awkwardly for him to take the ketchup.
Forcing myself to look him in the eye, I find his gaze is clouded with
something.  Disappointment, I think, and maybe a small amount of
hurt.  Then he gives a melancholy smile, takes the ketchup and pours
far too much of it onto his plate before setting it on the table in
front of me.

Why can't I get this right?  I consider the matter as I pour a small
dollop of ketchup onto my own plate.  What the hell is wrong with me?
I won't pretend that I've had endless fantasies about Mulder -- in
fact, for practical reasons, I've tried very hard to segregate him
from what Sister Angelica at Annapolis Regina referred to as my "baser
urges".

Nevertheless, I've had a subliminal awareness of him as a very
attractive man from the day I met him, and in the years we've worked
together an emotional bond has formed between us that I've been
helpless to prevent -- not that I *want* to prevent it, at least not
anymore.  There was a time ....

God, I'm babbling.  To myself, no less.  What I'm trying to get
straight in my head is that I've been more or less consciously waiting
for Mulder to notice me as a woman ever since we got back from
Antarctica.  What was it Padgett said, that day we took him to jail?
"Agent Scully is already in love."  Yep.  That would be me.  Guilty as
charged.

And now, finally, Mulder's gone and done it.  He's crossed the line,
and there's no way for me to ignore it or pretend he didn't mean it.
He isn't drugged up -- well, okay, he is a little, but thirty
milligrams of Tylenol #3 just isn't the same as IV Demerol.  He wasn't
desperate because he thought I was about to leave him.  He wasn't even
hyped up over some hokey story about a baseball-playing alien.

Nope.  None of those things are true.  He simply, plainly,
unmistakeably, wanted to kiss me.  And I wanted him to kiss me.  And
he did, and I let him, and now here we are at Denny's at 1:45 in the
morning eating french fries and chocolate milkshakes, and I'm shaking
like a leaf.

"Scully?"

"Hmm?"  I refocus my eyes on my partner's face, and see that he's
looking at me curiously.  The disappointment and hurt I thought I saw
in his eyes a few minutes ago seem to be gone -- so thoroughly gone
that now I'm not sure they were really there in the first place.
Could I have imagined that?  I mean, it was just a bottle of ketchup,
after all --

"Your fries are getting cold," Mulder announces, as if it were a
profound and meaningful observation.  "And your shake is starting to
melt."

I glance down at the plate, and then back up at him, and I shrug my
shoulders slightly.  "I guess I'm not really hungry," I say -- which
is sort of a lie; my stomach has been growling intermittently for
hours.  On the other hand, it's sort of not a lie, because all this
wheel-spinning and self-doubt has got my stomach tied up in knots, as
well.  Jesus.  Why do I do this to myself?

"You look tired," Mulder says, very softly.  "Maybe you should go home
and get some sleep."

I shrug again, and suddenly I do feel very weary.  "Yeah," I say.
"That's probably a good idea."

Mulder nods, and without saying anything he downs the rest of his
milkshake, slaps some money on the table, and rises to his feet and
heads for the door.  I slide out of the booth and follow him, catching
up just as he gets to the car.

The short drive to his apartment is silent and, speaking for myself at
any rate, awkward.  I'm suddenly bone-weary, both physically and
emotionally.  This case ... well, it's been very taxing for me, in a
lot of different ways.  My belief system has been getting pretty badly
knocked around the last month or two, and being assaulted by someone
who I *know* was dead hasn't helped matters at all.

I also will admit that I got a little swept up in the religious
implications surrounding the Millennium.  Logically, I know it's
ridiculous -- not only is this *not* the start of the new Millennium,
but the Bible also reminds us that no man will know the day or hour of
the Second Coming.  But that didn't stop me from feeling a tremor of
fear as that silver ball drifted slowly towards the ground a couple of
hours ago.  Maybe this was really going to be it, I remember
thinking.  Maybe ....

But it wasn't, and then Mulder was kissing me, and God I was happy.
For maybe two minutes, from the moment he started leaning towards me,
until we got outside and the cold night air started to invade the
comfy little bubble we were in, I was happy.  For the first time since
... well, since that late night batting practice Mulder lured me out
to last spring.  And before that was Christmas morning after the visit
to the haunted house, and before that --

But there's no point in going on.  The fact of the matter is that
almost every happy memory I can conjure for the past six years
involves Mulder.  And those two minutes while he was kissing me and
immediately after -- they were the best of all.  There's no logic to
my subsequent reaction, and no reason for me to be afraid.

None.

We arrive at Mulder's apartment building, and I pull to a stop across
the street from the front door.  We sit quietly for a minute, neither
of us looking at the other.  I want him to kiss me again, and I think
he wants to do it.  But given the way I've acted since we left the
hospital, I doubt if it's going to happen.  I'm sure he must have
decided that I regret it, or didn't want it, or some stupid thing.

"Scully?"

I turn in my seat to face him -- and oh, God.  He's smiling at me
again.  The way he did in the restaurant.  This is it, then.  He *is*
going to do it again -- he's going to kiss me.  Unless, of course, I
manage to screw it up with my damned -- whatever-the-hell-it-is.
Which is just not going to happen.  I'm not going to *let* it happen.

And now he's leaning in towards me, very slowly, giving me plenty of
time to tell him "no".  Which is very sweet of him, but it's also just
exactly the wrong thing to do, because it's giving me too much time to
*think*.  But I'm determined to let this happen -- and it occurs to me
that I can speed the process up a bit, and I lean towards him, helping
to close the gap.  His eyes are closed, and I find my own eyelids
drifting shut, just as they did in the hospital.  Something warm and
soft and moist touches my lips.  It's him ....

It's him ....

"Scully?"

I open my eyes, and find Mulder looking at me from about two inches
away.  I have no idea how long that lasted; no idea at all.  My pulse
is racing, and my lips are tingling.  I feel like I'm fourteen and
have just been kissed for the very first time.  Mulder looks ... happy
isn't quite the right word, but it'll do.  He also looks unbelievably
beautiful just at this moment -- damned near good enough to eat, in
fact.  Which just isn't on the agenda for the time being, I tell
myself firmly.  Certainly not for tonight.  I think we need to take
this whole thing nice and easy.

"Are you okay?" he asks.

I smile, and nod slightly -- and then I reach up and cup the back of
his head with my hand, and I kiss him again.

Ohhhh.  This is nice.  This is really, really nice.  This time I feel
the very tip of Mulder's tongue paint the outline of my lips, and then
withdraw -- and then I do the same for him, answering his unspoken
questions:  Yes, I do want this.  No, this is not just a New Year's
kiss.  Yes, we will get to that point, eventually.  You just need to
give me time.

Finally, we break apart again -- and for some reason I'm not at all
surprised to see that there are tears in his eyes.  Well, I'm feeling
a little sniffly, too, so I guess we're even.

We sit together in the car for a few more minutes, my hand resting on
his shoulder, just looking at each other.  We're exploring each
other's faces, I realize, trying to discover what's changed in the
past two hours.  Speaking for myself -- nothing, really.  Mulder is
the same man he was when he first leaned in to kiss me at the hospital
-- and thank God for that.  That's the man I've come to know and ...
love.  Yes, love.  Padgett was right about that much, at any rate.

Finally, Mulder smiles again, and plants a quick, playful kiss on the
tip of my nose -- sort of like a cherry on top of an ice cream
sundae.  Then he says, "I guess I'd better let you go."

I nod reluctantly.  I can see in the back of his eyes that he's
wishing I'd come upstairs with him, but I'm just not ready for that.
And after another moment, he nods.  "Okay, then."  He starts to turn
away, then pauses, and looks back at me.  "Would you ... would you be
interested in coming over to watch the Rose Bowl tomorrow?  With me?"

I have absolutely no interest in football, and Mulder is well aware of
that.  But I wouldn't miss this game for the world, so I just smile,
and say, "Sure.  I'd love to.  Want me to bring anything?  Maybe some
ice cream, so we could make some more milkshakes?"

Mulder's own smile broadens, and he lets out his breath in something
very close to a sigh of relief.  "Just yourself," he says, very, very
softly.  Before I can respond he's out of the car and walking briskly
across the street towards his apartment building.  Without saying
goodbye, and without looking back.

And I sit waiting in the car until I see the light come on in his
window, before I start the engine and pull away from the curb, making
a mental note to stop off for some chocolate ice cream before I come
back over tomorrow afternoon.



Fini

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man on fire, and you keep him warm for the rest of his life!
==========================
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