From: eponine119  <eponine119@att.net>
Date: 18 Jan 1999 03:31:45 GMT
Subject: NEW: Wet Head 1/1

...
Disclaimer: The X Files aren't mine.  They're his.  Oh well.
Summary: Can Mulder let Scully go to bed with a wet head?

Wet Head 
by eponine119 
eponine119@att.net
January 10, 1999

	Scully didn't want to leave the warmth of the steamy bathroom after her
shower, but she had to.  Wrapped in the thin white motel towel, she
stepped out to find Mulder sitting in the chair.  "What're you doing in
my room?" she asked.
	He shrugged.  She raised an eyebrow and looked back at him.  He made no
move to leave.  At this point in their relationship, it didn't bother
her.  They were like an old married couple.  She could drop the towel
and he probably wouldn't react.  She grabbed her pajamas from the bed
where she'd left them and took them into the bathroom to put them on. 
She wasn't going to chance the towel dropping thing.  Not tonight.  She
was too tired.
	He was still sitting there when she walked out again, pulling her comb
through her hair.  "What did you want, Mulder?  I'm tired, I want to go
to bed."  As she spoke, she sat down on the bed and yawned, pushing the
covers back.  She pushed her cold toes under the blanket and turned to
look at him.  He was still sitting there.  "Last chance," she said.
	Mulder frowned, as though he was hearing her from a long way away, lost
in thought.  "Are you going to bed like that?" he asked, his eyes
focusing on her.
	"Yeah," she responded, thinking again that her partner was weird.  But
she was used to that.
	"Your hair's wet."
	She nodded.
	"You can't go to bed with a wet head, you'll catch cold."
	"Mulder,  I'm pretty sure the worst thing I'll catch is a bad case of
bed hair," Scully informed him.  "And since we have to catch a flight in
four hours, I doubt you or anyone else is going to take offense."
	"You'll catch a cold," he told her.
	"Mulder -"  She was a doctor.  Germs caused illness, not chills or wet
hair.  But she couldn't convince Mulder of that.  She sighed instead.
	"You'll catch cold," he said again. "I don't want you to get sick."
	"What're you going to do about it?"  She looked down again at the
blanket, drawn up as far as her anklebone.  Her pajamas showed signs of
wear.  The cotton was wrinkled, and the stripes were fading with
washing.  She usually bought satin pj's, but she hadn't been able to
resist the 1940's-ish-ness of this set.  They looked like something
Katharine Hepburn would wear in one of the movies Scully liked to watch
when the motels had AMC.
	After a second's hesitation, Mulder got to his feet and crossed the
room. He moved slowly, and she wondered what was in his mind.  He stood
next to her and she turned her face up to look at him, feeling her brows
pull together.  She didn't have the words to ask him what he was
worrying about.  But he was worried, and about something more serious
than her hair.
	He put his hands on her shoulders, urging her out of bed.  It was cold,
but his hands were hot through the cotton shirt.  He walked her over to
the bathroom.  She thought she could feel his breath against her neck,
but she knew it had to be her imagination.  Shoeless, she felt almost
child-sized next to him.
	He turned on the bathroom light and located the blow drier in its niche
under the medicine cabinet. It was a fairly nice motel, she thought,
since it provided dryers and complimentary soap.  No robes, though.  
She looked in the mirror, still trying to read his mind as he fired up
the drier.  Its hum was soothing.  She watched Mulder's long white
fingers dug through her hair and felt the heat caress her neck.  She
closed her eyes.
	This is the kind of thing you marry a man for, she thought.  Her mother
had loved her father very much, but Margaret Scully always told her
girls she'd married him for his footrubs.  She sighed as Mulder's arms
went around her and up, holding her in place as he moved the drier over
her hair.
	"When I was a kid," Mulder said, barely audible above the sound of the
machine.  She opened her eyes and looked at him in the mirror, standing
behind her.  He was completely focused on her, on her hair, stroking it
with his fingers.  "When I was a kid," he said again, "my mother would
spend hours on my sister's hair.  It was long and she always wore it in
braids with ribbons on the ends.  She'd chew on the ribbons and my dad
would yell at her for it.  But every night my mother would dry her hair,
because it would have taken hours to dry on its own.  I would just watch
them.  Wishing I could know what that was like.  That...closeness...that
daughters have with their mothers, so different from the cold
relationship I had with my father.  We'd just sit for hours, in complete
silence, watching baseball or basketball."
	"Mulder -" she said, and her voice sounded thick.
	She'd interrupted and he closed his mouth.  For a second, he withdrew,
pulling the dryer away, removing his fingers from her scalp.  He made a
small gesture that for a second she couldn't interpret, until he once
again touched her shoulders and turned her around.  She stared at the
rip in his white t-shirt, thinking that bachelors never got good at
laundry.  His shirt was dingy, in need of bleaching.
	Mulder touched her chin and she jumped with a quick intake of breath. 
She felt him let out a breath of his own, almost a laugh, but not
quite.  What did he want? she thought, wondering if this was going to be
it, a kiss between them under such bizarre circumstances.  But Mulder
pointed the hair dryer at her and the warmth spilled over her face,
forcing her eyes closed.
	This felt so personal, standing face to face with him.  She opened her
eyes again and worked to keep them open against the hot wind as he
worked over her hair, drawing it back and away, the repetition
hypnotizing.  She wanted to pull the dryer out of his hands and fall
against him.
	He turned it off.  She blinked and his lips formed an embarrassed smile
as he reached around her to put the implement down on the counter behind
her.  What now, she thought.
	"All done," he said.
	"Thanks," she managed to say.  Reluctantly, she turned and saw herself
in the mirror.  She looked different.  Her hair was parted in the
middle, silky and completely flat.  What did Mulder know, after all. 
But it was dry.
	"Wouldn't want you to catch cold," he said and it made her smile,
secretly, to herself.  But he could see it in the mirror.  Impulsively,
he leaned down and kissed the crown of her head.  She could barely feel
the light kiss.  She turned and wrapped her arms around him, squeezing
him tight for a long moment.  Then she let him go and headed for her
bed, tossing the covers back and jumping under them before she could get
cold again.
	Mulder turned out the bathroom light and smiled at her again, looking
lost and puppy like.  She wanted to hold up the covers and invite him
under there with her.  But she couldn't.  He nodded to her before
heading for the connecting door between their rooms.  "The closeness,"
he nodded.
	She nodded back, and he slipped through the door.  She turned off the
lamp next to the bed.  He didn't lock the door between them. 
"Goodnight, Mulder," she murmured and she believed that he could hear
her, in his heart at least.  It was easy for her to fall asleep that
night.  She'd felt the closeness too.  And she was grateful.

the end.

comments appreciated. eponine119@att.net