Author: Foxie Meg

Summary: A Bureau credit card to use for the evening? Oh dear. (Post-Hollywood A.D.)

Rating: G

Disclaimer: What’s that Chris? After the way you’ve treated them in S8 you want me to let you keep them? I think not! Thanks to Carole King’s “Jazzman” for the title.

“So. What are we going to do with all these taxpayer dollars?”

“Oh, I’m sure we’ll think of something, Mulder.”

Our hands are still clasped together, and I can feel a warm happy buzz that I usually only get from fine wine. Well, that’s most frequently the culprit, but only because Mulder and I don’t have heart-to-heart talks that often.

I love it when he waxes philosophical and moody, his lips pursed in melancholy humor. I can’t let him stay that way long, for his own emotional health, but I have to admit to feeling an affectionate pang for him when he is that way… something between the amusement one would have for a child’s over-dramatization of emotions and a deep, delicious chill of the soul at his profound revelations.

Spooky, indeed. The man is brilliant in a way that most men find threatening and most women find irresistible.

Is it any wonder, then, that I’m feeling a warm glow from being the focus of his intense attentions?

We have been strolling out of the studio in companionable silence for awhile when we are startled by the rolling sounds of a piano. We exchange looks of surprise and curiosity and by mutual unspoken agreement turn around and walk back towards the sound.

It seems to be coming from the stage we just left, and we approach cautiously, wondering if we were truly alone during our earlier conversation.

If there is one thing Mulder has taught me, it is that we are never truly alone.

“Trick of lighting,” I whisper in half-belief as we stare, wide-eyed, at the unsubstantial dancers on the hills we have moments before abandoned for the night life of Los Angeles. “Computer Graphic Images.”

“Heightened suggestibility,” he agrees with his own wavering faith.

“Too many viewings of Plan Nine from Outer Space,” I can’t resist teasing.

“No such thing as too many viewings of a good movie, Scully,” he grins, turning to me; and once again we wordlessly agree to a course of action, leaving the undead to enjoy their blue-screen moonlight and choreographed secondhand tangos in relative privacy.

“See?” he murmurs almost introspectively as we step into the sultry summer night outside the studio.

See what? I see you…

“I was right. People who have come back from the dead just want to enjoy life’s simpler pleasures. Like dancing.”

Like dancing, indeed.

“Well,” I say in a lightly thoughtful manner that has him turning to me with expectant curiosity. “We’ve both come back from the dead more times than I care to count…” We both allow a split-second of memory to rush over us… a rapid succession of desperate images… before shaking off the chill of the despair they remind us of. “So I think we’re entitled to a few simple pleasures ourselves.”

“Simple, but expensive,” Mulder grins, nodding toward the credit card I am still toying with.

“Perhaps,” I smile. “Would you like to go dancing?”

“Why, Agent Scully!” he appears shocked, but the childishly delighted smile on his face is only increasing the feeling of intoxication I’m experiencing. “Are you asking me on a date?”

I tilt my head playfully, unwilling to lose this feeling of carefree camaraderie that balances tentatively between us. “Well, if a date is determined by who pays… I’d say Skinner asked us both out on a date.”

“Or J. Edgar Hoover,” he puts in helpfully.

“Well, yes. Or the entire tax-paying population.”

“Hey, I’m all for open relationships, but can we maybe limit it to just Skinner and J. Edgar?”

“Skinner?” I raise my eyebrows. “You wouldn’t feel threatened by my love for him?”

He studies me with something like a flash of panic, but quickly sees that I am still teasing.

“Not as long as you’re willing to share,” he leers.

I laugh. “Share whom? Him or me?”

“Both,” he grins as he waves to a passing cab, never taking his eyes off my face.

“So, Agent Mulder, are we going dancing?”

His answering smile intoxicated me, and I’m feeling no pain presently, moving around the dance floor in his arms, well past midnight. The man is an incredible dancer, and he swings me far and wide before tugging me back close. He leads me through several complicated dance steps, and I have a sudden wistful longing for the dance lessons Missy and I had to leave behind for a military transfer. At the time, I was relieved, although Melissa was heartbroken. Now, I really sincerely wish I’d gotten to finish them.

We are full of some of Los Angeles’ finest seafood and genuine California red wine, and I’m beginning to have thoughts of a hotel for the night.

Single room.

The wine. It’s got to be the wine.

I am suddenly assaulted by an exchange from a Gwyneth Paltrow movie I once saw. I remember it with vivid clarity because the actor who played her romantic lead opposite reminded me in subtle ways of my partner.

< “The wine has weakened you! For you to say such things--” >

< “If the wine has had any effect, it is to strengthen my resolve…” >

Whoa, Dana. Better stop right there. Ah, what for?

< “…to say that I love you!” >

Indeed.

I find myself imagining making that very declaration to Mulder, in a British accent nonetheless. He’d probably accuse me of stealing some of the drugs they gave him when we rescued him in Bermuda. That thought is so entirely amusing to my wine-fuzzed brain that I can’t help but giggle.

“What’s so funny?” he asks with cautious amusement, holding me close. It is a gentle song now, and we are slow dancing.

Hoo boy. Slow dancing with Mulder.

I shake my head, but I’m sure he knows anyway. Maybe not exactly what I was thinking, but simply that I am in such a good mood I don’t need anything truly funny to laugh at.

“What do you say we grab a bottle of wine and go somewhere to enjoy it?” he whispers huskily into my ear, and I smile back.

“A bubble bath,” I say, remembering when we were here before. Before the movie premiered. Wine in a bubble bath, and a “real” conversation with Mulder.

“Real men don’t take bubble baths,” he teases, and I know it is a playful jibe at Skinner, meant to offend the Special Agent Dana Scully who is supposedly in love with him.

But I’ve got a trump card.

“I never expected to hear you question your own manhood so blatantly,” I say with mock surprise and sincerity.

He gapes.

He actually gapes, and I barely bother hiding my giggles at his fish-like expression.

“Wha--”

“Oh come on, Mulder. You don’t think I couldn’t hear the water splashing? Not to mention when you dropped the phone into the water.”

“I did not!”

I grin at him. “All right, but you almost did when I said that about ‘our own repressed sexual fears and desires.’ Admit it.”

“I plead the fifth,” he maintains, although by calling upon the powers of the Fifth Amendment, he has effectively incriminated himself.

“‘Deny Everything,’ is that it?”

“You learn quickly, grasshopper,” he says in a poor imitation of an Oriental accent.

I shake my head. “So, Mulder. Bubble bath?”

“For two?” he leers.

“What would you do if I said ‘yes’?”

“I’d say that, according to my theory, this fits the profile.”

“The profile?”

“Of the undead.”

“Ah yes. I’d forgotten we’re now officially zombies. So how does this fit your profile?”

“Well, we’ve taken care of the basic needs. We’ve eaten, drunk, and danced.”

He leaves it unfinished, but a pleasant diffusion of heat rushes through me as my ears are assaulted by his bubble bath musings of a year ago.

< “Then they’re gonna drink, and dance… and make love.” >

“I agree, Mulder.” He looks shocked. “For once, I completely concur. Shall we launch an investigation into the gentler side of the undead?”

“Oh yes. A very thorough investigation.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

~Finis~

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