From: cassandraxf@my-dejanews.com
Date: Tue, 05 Jan 1999 21:25:26 GMT
Subject: Post Triangle 3: Me and Mulder PG

Rating:  Strictly PG and slashy content, although no smut.

Disclaimer: If she was mine, she'd be a lot nicer and tougher at the same
time. Rating: PG Blame: Only myself.

Me and Mulder

by cassandrax-@yahoo.com

It didn't take a forensic genius to see it. Although I have to admit that
blurting it out to Skinner that way was probably a little
tactless.

When I first noticed it was mutual, I have to admit, I was.....I was a little
jealous. Maybe jealous isn't the right word, but I'm not sure what is.
Whatever else Mulder and I have built between us, we've had our ups and
downs, but I've known he found me attractive for a long time. I think we
could have done something with that.

I've just never been able to figure out whether or not we should.

I'm not really letting it go, exactly. We've found our way back to being
friends again, after some difficult times, and I treasure that.  I treasure
that warmth in his eyes when he looks at me.  It's like a shield at my back,
a sword at my side, especially these days dealing with some of the jerks in
the bullpen.

Don't ever let anyone tell you that FBI agents are all terrific guys.  Some of
them are misogynist as hell, real pigs on two feet. But mostly the veterans,
even those just ten years or so older than I am.

Which brings me back to Skinner and Mulder, I guess. Skinner has always
respected me, I've known that, even when he came down hard on us. And I think
I've always known that he liked me. He didn't like me really well last year, I
did some things even I don't like to look back on.

But I won't go there. We all have regrets. I regret not trusting my partner,
I regret not doing that autopsy when he asked me to, still shell shocked from
the terrorist case, and exhausted from a hostage situation.  He regrets
things he's done, things he's said to me, I know, he told me when I admitted
my regrets to him.

That conversation healed a lot of the division between us. It let me go to
Skinner when he was missing, strangely enough, because I'd been watching the
two of them watching each other for a while. I'm not sure how long they'd
been doing it before I noticed it. I'm not sure they each noticed the other
one was watching.

Like I said, at first I was almost angry, almost envious. And gradually, I
realized, there was nothing going on. Mulder was still alone. Skinner was
still alone. Not that I was matchmaking, for God's sake, I wasn't sure there
would be a Mulder if I didn't try Skinner after Kersh slammed me down. 
Skinner's excuses were as thin as tissue paper. His pension--please, this is
the man who got us back into the Bureau without reprimand after all the MJ
tape business. He was worried about getting Mulder in deeper after giving us
that file on the case in Arizona.

Which was admirable, but I had to break through it. So I did. "Do it for
Mulder," I told him softly.

I didn't think he would, even though his eyes flickered then.

If I hadn't seen him watching Mulder, I'd have done more than kiss him, too.

I can hear the nuns' training rise up in the back of my head and gasp in
horror. Ah, well, Dana's a big girl now, and she's got a lovely new fella,
who doesn't work with her. Thank God.

Be that as it may, I knew the minute Skinner had stopped watching and come
clean. Mulder looked dazed, but like a kid does at Christmas.  Instead of
post-hospital depression and grouchiness, he'd actually picked up his
apartment, had groceries in the refrigerator, and when I tasked him with
going out for them, he actually blushed.

Mulder. Mr. Adult Video News. Blushed.

And after a little careful and deft probing, he admitted that Skinner had
brought the groceries over. It was one of those weird moments in my life. A
sense of loss, delight that he was happy--I could see it in those eyes--and a
weird feeling that my life had finally shifted paths.

I let go of it.

And found I still cared as much about Mulder as I had the moment before.
I grinned. "Friends in high places," was all I said, and he looked away,
probably to keep me from seeing him blush again.

I looked away, too, blinked back the brief sting of tears that didn't know
whether to be happy or sad, and then cooked him dinner.

We had a good time, oddly, we don't usually eat together unless we're on a
case, but I was glad I'd done it, we watched some movie that escapes me now,
and laughed a lot, and I went home.

As if God had been waiting for me, I met Richard the next day. I spent the
next three weeks in my own pheromone induced haze and when I emerged for
oxygen, I noticed Mulder was....damned near sparkling.

Now, Mulder can be charming, but this was different. I think he emerged about
the same time and noticed, he said, that I had that flushed, girl of sixteen
haze about me. I told him I'd shot him once and could shoot him again, but he
just grinned and forebore to tease me. Which was good, because I was winding
up for a fast pitch to get him, but he let it lie.

Maybe he'd noticed I'd let him be over Skinner's personal grocery delivery.

Who knows. Mulder can be as insensitive as any boneheaded male when he's
focused on something else, but he really isn't insensitive by nature. He's
obsessed. Same thing at times, I suppose.

So, anyway, I naturally paid attention to the next time I saw Skinner, and
while Skinner cannot be said to sparkle, I think it's safe to say that
there's a change there. People who don't know him very well might not notice
it--and it's not that I think I'm his bosom friend--but Mulder and I have
been involved in some grim things over the years with Skinner, and I can see
a lightening. A little less of a barricaded soul.

Okay, I'm waxing eloquent, but here I am, the morning after a sensational New
Year's Eve with Richard and maybe I'm feeling a little eloquent.

Mulder is happy. Well, as happy as Mulder can ever be, he's driven and he's
got skeletons in the family closet that are decidedly ugly, but he's
noticeably happy. Even if he loathes Kersh and would cheerfully run him over
with a semi.

I'd steal the semi for him.

I sometimes wonder if I'm relieved because it means he and I aren't going to
be an item, or if I'm relieved because choosing Skinner shows much better
taste than choosing that black hearted bitch Diana Fowley, or what. Mostly I
don't think it matters.

I like and respect Skinner, although I confess to hiding the deepest darkest
desire to ask Mulder how he is in bed, but Fowley, as my father used to say,
isn't worth the black powder it would take to blow her to hell.

I haven't told Mulder yet, but I saw them out together the other night. Just
taking in a movie. They were in the theatre lobby aimiably arguing over what
they were going to buy. Skinner got a soda, and Mulder insisted on popcorn,
nachos and his own drink.  Instead of looking impatient, Skinner looked amused
and, dare I say it, faintly indulgent. Ten years younger than usual. Both of
them, I swear.

Richard wanted to know what I was laughing to myself about. I told him I was
just feeling good and happy to be with him, and both things were true, but it
was also about seeing them together. Happy.  Relaxed. Normal.

It makes it easier for me to just enjoy my own life, my relationship with
Richard, to know in my heart that Mulder has something of his own.
Co-dependent as hell, but there you are, I was raised as an Irish Catholic.
I'm kidding, mostly. I just don't know that I'd feel as comfortable just
relaxing into it if Mulder was still.....alone and driven and lonely. That
Catholic guilt thing, I guess.

He's easier to work with, although he'll never be anyone but who he is, driven
and obsessive and terrified of what he says he found when he found me last
summer.

Everyone needs a shield at their back and a sword at their side. If I couldn't
be his, I'm glad he found his own.

Genuinely glad.

And that thank god, is true.