From: "paula dixon" Date: Mon, 13 Nov 2000 11:31:01 GMT Subject: submission-story-Scully/Mulder romance/angst - So What Now? Source: direct Title - So Who's Mulder Author - Paula Rating - PG Classification - SRH Spoilers - Never Again Keywords - Mulder/Scully Romance Summary - Scully finds out about Mulder's visit to Ed Jerse and she's not happy! This is the third story in the So? trilogy. You don't need to read the other two to get the idea though. It's based on my favorite episode "Never Again". I love feedback so if you want, e-mail me at heidiwax@hotmail.com Disclaimer: The X-Files and the characters in this story belong to Chris Carter and 1013. I'm just borrowing them for the purpose of amusing myself and others and will put them back where they belong when I'm done. So What Now? by Paula Scully looked incredulously down at the phone message she had just taken for her absent partner. Her heart began to pound as she reread the message hoping to find some mistake in what she had written, something that would mean that Mulder had not done what she suspected he had. The message was from a Doctor Gadney, a staff psychiatrist at a Philadelphia hospital for the criminally insane, who wanted to know if Mulder would be prepared to discuss his impressions regarding the patient he had interviewed, one Edward Jerse. She could feel her temper rising as she struggled to think of a practical reason for Mulder to have gone to interview Ed Jerse. There wasn't one, she concluded and that made her want to kick something. Preferably her interfering partner. Goddamn him! The only reason she could think of for Mulder interviewing Ed Jerse was that he wanted to find out the full story of what happened those few days in Philadelphia while he was on holidays in Memphis. The thought of Mulder and Ed talking about her as if they were two guys in a bar discussing a woman they'd both dated made her blood boil. Unfortunately Mulder chose that moment to make his appearance. Walking through the door with a cup full of steaming coffee he gave her one of his sexy half smiles, surprised to see her. "You're still here! I needed a coff..." He got no further than that when the tacky snow globe he used for a paperweight flew past his head, missing him by an inch or two but causing him to spill the scalding coffee down the front of his suit as he dodged wildly. The snow globe shattered against the wall. "What the...??!!! Scully! What the hell are you doing?!" he yelled at his partner trying to hold his hot, wet clothes away from his body so as not to be scalded. Scully merely stood looking at him coldly for a few moments before walking to the water bubbler to fill a small paper cup with water. This she threw over the front of Mulder's suit. Mulder gasped as the chilled water hit his groin but at least it removed the hot coffee problem. He removed his gaze from his ruined suit and turned his full attention to Scully who had still not spoken a word. He opened his mouth to yell at her again but stopped when he saw the expression on her face. He'd seen Scully angry on a number of occasiona and more often than not her anger had been directed at him but he had never seen her as she was now. Her face was flushed bright red, her jaw was clenched and her blue eyes were practically shooting sparks at him. Her whole stance was aggressive as if she were holding herself back from physically attacking him. "Scully" he said cautiously. "What's wrong? What's happened?" Wordlessly she handed him, with shaking fingers, a post-it note covered with her neat handwriting. Mulder took it from her carefully and read the few words on it with slowly dawning comprehension. With the comprehension came a sick, sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. "Shit." "Can you please explain this to me Mulder?" Scully ground out. "Scully, I..." Mulder searched frantically for some kind of explanation that was going to get him out of this mess but couldn't think of one that Scully would swallow. The silent seconds lengthened as they stared at each other, Scully glaring without pity, Mulder with his guilt clearly showing in his eyes. "I'm sorry Scully" Mulder finally said dropping his gaze from hers. "It's not as bad as you think though." "Not as bad as I...??? Oh Mulder you're incredible." Scully said with venom. "This has got to be the most reprehensible thing you have ever done. How DARE you! Sneaking around behind my back. SPYING on me!" "No Scully, it wasn't like that!" Mulder said defensively. "Look I only did this admittedly stupid thing because I was worried about you. I wanted to understand why you put yourself in such a dangerous situation." "Why didn't you just ask me?" Scully retorted angrily. Mulder looked at her with surprise. "I tried to Scully. You weren't exactly keen to discuss it with me." "So you took it upon yourself to go visit Ed to get the full story. That's just great Mulder." She said with disgust. Mulder sighed, rubbing a hand across his eyes "I've already said it was a dumb thing to do, but yes, I wanted to find out what really happened." He looked at Scully and was relieved to see that she had relaxed her stance slightly. "Can we just talk about this rationally Scully? Please." "Fine" "Good" Mulder moved to his side of the desk, gingerly sitting down and grimacing as the now cold, damp material of his trousers made contact with his skin. Even through her haze of anger, Scully allowed herself a small smile of satisfaction as she watched her partner's obvious discomfort. She sat down on her side of his desk and looked at him expectantly. "So Scully what do you want to know?" Mulder asked quietly. Now that he was sitting behind his desk he felt a little more in control of the situation. He knew he risked loosing Scully as a partner and more importantly as a friend, unless he played this very carefully. "Why don't you just tell me exactly what happened and we'll take it from there." she answered. She was glad to be sitting down as her legs were shaking at the thought of what Ed could have told Mulder. "I went there to conduct a professional investigation of Jerse's experiences. I'd done a bit of digging and found a number of cases involving "talking tattoos". There were even a few that didn't involve inebriated sailors." He looked up at Scully to see her response to his feeble attempt to lighten the atmosphere. Scully looked back at him coldly. Mulder cleared his throat and tried again. "Look Scully, I'm not saying I didn't have an ulterior motive for going out there but I did have legitimate reasons as well." "Pretty flimsy reasons Mulder." Mulder shrugged unable to offer a further defence. "OK Mulder just get on with it" Scully sighed. "He recognised my name" he watched her reaction to this bald statement closely and was not disappointed. Scullys face drained of all colour and there was something in her eyes. Fear? Panic? Both. "He said you'd mentioned it once and he'd asked you about it." The relief Scully felt was extreme. Thank God Ed had been discreet and Mulder had no idea of the circumstances under which she had cried out his name. She only hoped he had been as discreet about the other things they had discussed. "Anyway" continued Mulder. "I asked him to tell me the chain of events that happened from the time he acquired the tattoo, which he did up to a point." "And which point was that?" "The point where he met you, Scully." Mulder explained eying his partner speculatively. "He point blank refused to discuss anything about your meeting or what went on between you. Said he wouldn't feel right about it." Scully could tell from Mulder's expression that he had not been at all happy with this turn of events. 'Serves you right, Mulder, for poking your arrogant nose where it doesn't belong.' she thought smugly. Irrationally, Mulder could feel his own temper rising. How dare she be so damn smug about the fact Jerse wouldn't talk to him about her. Desperate to shake her from her icy calm he spoke without thinking. "Of course I know you slept with him." "You what?!!" Scully felt like she'd been punched in the stomach. She leapt to her feet, knocking over her chair in the process. "He told you that??!!" "He didn't have to" Mulder answered angrily. "It was written all over his face and in his whole attitude towards me. It just took me a while to figure it out." Mulder rose from his chair also and strode around the desk to stand aggressively in front of his partner. "Damn it Scully, the guy even took it upon himself to give me advice about you. How the hell do you think that made me feel?" "If you hadn't taken it upon yourself to interfere in my private life you wouldn't have this problem Mulder, so don't expect me to feel sorry for you." She shot back. This was exactly what Scully had been afraid would happen ever since her encounter with Ed. She felt as though she was trapped in a nightmare. "I don't understand you Scully" Mulder continued sarcastically. "We've been partners for almost 5 years, we've saved each other's lives so many times I've lost count and supported each other when we were at rock bottom and yet you obviously opened up more to that tattooed bastard in one day than you ever have to me. For years whenever anything's bothering you all I've gotten was "I'm fine Mulder" and yet one day with good old Ed and you're ready to tell him all your woes and then jump into bed with him." Scully's hand lashed out as if of it's own accord, connecting sharply with Mulder's left cheek. It caught him off guard and he staggered back against the desk, shocked at Scully's actions. "You don't know anything about it Mulder." Scully stated as calmly as she could and with no apology in her voice. "Ed listened to me. He treated me like a person, not just another piece of office furniture. And yes, I slept with him and I did it because I wanted to and because at the time it was what I needed." Mulder was recovering from his former shock and studied his partner closely as she spoke. He could see that she was trying hard to reign in her emotions. Her words hit him hard and he wanted to hurt her as she was hurting him. He wanted to shatter her self control. "Yeah right Scully" he said caustically. "You want to know what I think? I think you did it because you were angry at me." "What??!" Scully gasped. The calm she had cultivated so carefully seconds ago vanished at his words and she was left breathless with fury once again. Leaning casually against the desk he continued to expound his latest theory. "You heard me Scully. I think you were so angry with me after that stupid argument about the desk that you went out of your way to do some thing you knew I would be angry about. Of course you thought I'd never find out, but you'd know wouldn't you Scully? Pity you chose the wrong guy for your little liaison." With a cry Scully lunged for him again but this time Mulder was ready for her and with catlike ease he caught her wrist before her hand made contact with his face once more. "Don't" he admonished. "I may have deserved it the first time but everything I've said since has been true." "You're a bastard Mulder" she replied angrily struggling vainly against his superior strength as he captured her other wrist. Glaring down at Scully's flushed face Mulder finally lost control completely. Dragging her body against his he lowered his head to crush her lips under his own. Scully fought against him but he held her securely and continued his assault on her lips and on her senses. She tried valiantly to hold on to her anger and outrage but the feelings he was arousing in her were too strong to ignore. She stopped fighting and began to revel in the feel of his body against hers and the taste of his mouth on her own. He felt the change in her immediately and released her wrists to hold her close against him. Lifting his lips from hers he looked down at her, his brown eyes meeting her blue ones questioningly. With a groan he lowered his head once more, no longer wanting to punish. She opened her mouth to him and he took immediate advantage. Her arms encircled him and her hands caressed him, wanting him even closer. He felt so good she never wanted him to let her go. When he finally raised his mouth from hers minutes later they were both shaking. Scully's silk blouse was crushed, having come untucked from her skirt and her hair was mussed from Mulder's long fingers. Mulder had fared little better and the evidence of his arousal was embarrassingly noticeable against his still damp trousers. "Scully" Mulder breathed softly reaching out to stroke the curve of her cheek. "I don't know what to say." She smiled slightly at the bewildered look on her partner's face knowing that his expression was mirrored by her own. "Well for a start you can tell me the real reason you paid a visit to Ed Jerse." He smiled slightly at her dogged determination to get the full story out of him despite all distractions. She was visibly calmer now and the tight worried look she had worn when he entered the office was gone. He moved to sit on the corner of the desk as she settled back into her chair, looking up at him expectantly. Knowing that he could no longer deceive her, he took a deep breath and told her the truth. "I was jealous as hell." he stated succinctly. "That's it? That's the whole story? You were jealous so you drove up to Philadelphia to interview Ed Jerse?" Scully was overwhelmed by the simplicity of his explanation. "Yep, that's about it. I was... I don't know Scully. I just needed to try to find out why it happened. I thought Jerse would turn out to be some smooth talking lothario and that would explain why you...dropped your guard with him." Mulder said tactfully. He was surprised at how easily he was finding it to explain all this to Scully. "I guess I was also thinking that you may have done it as some way of getting back at me after we quarrelled." He watched her reactions to this comment carefully, hoping she wouldn't get angry again. Scully looked at him levelly but did not speak. "Was that why you did it Scully?" he asked quietly. "Mulder I..." she began ready to deny the accusation, then stopped. She suddenly remembered the argument she had had with Mulder minutes before she had picked up the phone to accept Ed's invitation. "Yes, I suppose in a way that's why I did it. Not exactly to get back at you Mulder but I felt...I needed to break away from the direction my life was going. I needed to be someone different for a while and Ed allowed me to do that." "And did it help?" Scully smiled and shrugged. "Not really, but being with Ed allowed me to put some things in their proper perspective." "Such as?" Scully took a deep breath before answering knowing that her answer would commit her irrevocably to the path she and Mulder were now on. "Being with Ed made me face my feelings for you, Mulder." Slowly Mulder began to smile. "You have feelings for me Scully?" "Don't be an asshole Mulder." "Scully," he reached out to place his hand over hers. "I need to hear it." "I love you Mulder." It was done. She had admitted it to herself and now she had admitted it to Mulder. And he was smiling. "It's about time" he muttered. "Scully...I love you too." The sat in silence smiling at each other, letting the words they had spoken sink in. Finally Scully broke the silence. "So what now, Mulder?" she asked quietly. Mulder considered the question a moment before answering. "Well, I think we should date for a while, get engaged, married, a house in the suburbs, kids, old age, then death." Smiling she said "You don't think that's rushing things a bit?" "Rushing? Hell Scully, we're five years behind, we have some catching up to do." He was grinning at her as she laughed at him. "Or you could have dinner with me tonight and we can just play the rest by ear?" "You're on. My place, eight o'clock" THE END