Turn Of The Card
The thing was, Mulder had gotten so used to talking to Scully all the time, that he tended to forget that she didn't always hear his side of the conversation. Or that she didn't know everything that was in his head. He assumed she did, because they could communicate so well, communicate in shorthand with each other, that she could telegraph her moves to him, that she could know more or less how he'd react in a given situation.
So he assumed that she'd follow his line of reasoning, that he wouldn't have to explain about Diana, about the debt he owed her. He owed Diana a life, his life. He assumed that Scully would understand that he didn't have time to explain everything that he was formulating. She always had in the past. So, why now? Why the problem?
The Gunmen and Scully were against him. He couldn't argue, he didn't have time. He couldn't stand there and make a case for Diana. He had to move.
The Gunmen and Scully had looked at him like he had gone to the other side, like he was in bed with old Smokey, himself. Mulder throttled his rage at this change. Of all times to back him up, he needed them now.
Jesus, partners were supposed to back your play. Hadn't he and Scully been through enough, why couldn't she just believe he had good reasons for what he did? That he owed Diana a chance, that he owed Diana a life?
His life.
There was something false about Diana, that night. She never tried to be physically affectionate with anyone, never showed vulnerability unless she was feeling invulnerable. Bullet-proof. She had the hole cards, obviously. He had to go with her, follow the play. Go with her to El Rico Base, see what her cards were.
But he could call Scully, and he did.
Potomac Yards. Not the base. He shut the cell phone off quickly.
"I'll send you on ahead," he told Diana. He left her apartment quickly, half expecting a bullet between his shoulder blades. He raced to a gas station near the interstate; sure enough, there was Scully in her car. She accelerated before he got his right foot off the pavement, much less, the door closed.
"Have a good evening?" She asked sweetly.
"Enlightening," he said. "I went to Diana's apartment, lookin' for something to prove what you told me. Got a surprise visitor, instead. Cancerman."
She digested that for a while, driving in her usual hell-for-leather fashion. "Gonna say it?" she said, finally, whipping around an eighteen-wheeler.
He cut his eyes at her. "What?"
"That I was right?"
"I didn't find anything to tell me you were, " he said.
"Mulder, you are so---so full of fucking shit, " she snapped.
"Whoa, sailor. You take Communion with that mouth?"
"The fact that Cancerman waltzed in should have given you a clue that Diana isn't your ally, not any more. The fact that she spent years with nothing---nothing--in her FBI jacket should---"
"You called Skinner, right?" Mulder asked, when she stopped to breathe and to cross three lanes of traffic to the exit. They really needed those blue lights he saw in movies, when the undercover cops slapped a light on the dashboard. That might keep them from an impressive and explosive death on the interstate, or the very least, from a road rager shooting at them.
Of course, he could always shoot back.
"You do it," she said.
So after all that, after they drove with Skinner to El Rico and found the burned corpses, after they caught a ride to Mulder's car in the pearly pre dawn, who'da thunk that Scully would have dragged Mulder into her apartment with her?
True, she wanted to scold, argue, speculate, and then finally recite, in a flat tone, his many transgressions over the past few days.
He could handle that, because she walked back and forth from her living room to the kitchen, making tea, taking off her watch, shoes, and earrings. She stopped for a moment, frowning. "You have any other clothes in your car?"
"My gym bag," he said. He was still wearing his overcoat, suit, holster and all.
"Well, get it. That suit needs to be decontaminated."
She didn't exactly smell April-fresh, but he said nothing, just hopped the elevator down to the parking garage and popped the trunk. On the way back, he sniffed his lapel.
Nope. The burning smell was in her sinuses, in her memory, not on his suit.
She let him back in, but she had only taken off her jacket. She still had her gun and holster on. As he passed her, he smelled toast. "Breakfast?" he asked hopefully.
"That's all I have," she said, grudgingly. "Margarine spray and sugarless jelly." She closed the door, and held out a hand for his coat. She sniffed it, rather unnecessarily, he thought, and he followed her to the kitchen. Mulder loosened his tie and slung his jacket off.
They drank decaf hot tea and ate toast, in silence. The sun rose, but Scully had closed her blinds, and they ate in the light of the light over the stove.
Scully pushed away her cup. "Shower and bed," she said abruptly.
Mulder followed her into the bedroom, carefully unholstering his gun and dropping the contents of his jacket pockets and belt onto a chair. He heard the shower start, and sitting on the bed, bent to unlace his shoes and take off his socks.
"Are you coming, Mulder?" Scully called, impatiently. "There's only so much hot water."
He dropped his trousers in the bathroom. "So we're showering together now?" he asked. He stripped off his undershirt and boxers.
"Shut up and get in here, Mulder," Scully said. She was glaring at him through the glass door, so he opened it and stepped into her arms.
Jeeze, who knew a little decontamination spray-down would make her so kinky?