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"Boom"
By: Ann (Queegqueg)
Feedback: Don't make me beg! I'd love feedback! [email protected]
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He spent Friday night at the supermarket, and all day Saturday practising preparing the dish, until he finally felt confident about serving it to someone else. By the time the knock came at the door, he had the food all ready to go into the oven. He answered the door, and his eyes absorbed the picture that met him. He always noticed what she was wearing.
She had decided on the green top and black trousers, not too work-like, but not too date-like either. Her eyes instantly took in Mulder's apparel: black T shirt, black jeans... and bare feet. She hoped she wasn't visibly blushing from the thoughts going on in her head, and needed to change the subject.
"So Mulder, where's this meal?"
"It's in the kitchen, all ready to go in."
She wandered in there, and was impressed to see the chicken all prepared, with sauce waiting, in the casserole dish. She noticed that the dish had clearly never been used, but refrained from remarking on it, the man had clearly gone to a lot of trouble here. She leaned in to sniff the sauce.
"I know it looks like bird crap, but it should taste okay," he joked.
"Mulder, I'm impressed. Coconut sauce, one of my favourite dishes."
She could swear she could see the sigh of relief wash over him.
"Err, Mulder, just a question, but you did remember to take the giblets out, didn't you?"
He stopped her before she could check inside the bird.
"Of course I did, what kind of an idiot do you think I am?"
"Well, shall we go into the other room, I'll put this in the oven."
While she was out, he quickly searched inside the bird. That was a close thing, why hadn't Mrs Scully mentioned that to him? He sighed at his own ineptitude, it probably seemed too obvious a point to her.
They found their way onto the familiar sofa, and sat down.
Mulder had put some music on in the background. Strains of Fleetwood Mac's Songbird filled the room:

"To you I'll give the world
To you, I'll never be cold
'Cause I feel that when I'm with you,
It's all right, I know it's right."

"So what video do we have, Mulder?"
"No video this time, Scully, I thought we'd just take the chance to talk."
It surprised her a little, and caught her a little off-balance. What kind of talk did he have in mind exactly? It actually made her feel uneasy, and she put that down to the similarities here with that incident with Eddie Van Blundht... and look how that nearly ended up!
*******************************************************
The evening continued with general chit chat, talk of their respective families, mainly Scully's, Mulder really was in a listening mood for a change. Then, in an awkward silence, he decided to change the subject.
"How about a game of 'truth or dare'?"
"Oh no, I don't think so...."
"Oh go on Scully, you can go first.... ask away!"
"I don't know... um, okay, what was the first time you spent a night away from home?"
"Okay, well I was 12, and I guess my parents wanted me out of the way, they were having problems, so they sent me to Summer camp."
"Did you like it?"
"Does anyone like Summer camp? Come on Scully, it's full of kids who are aspiring to better things, like doctor's kids, or kids whose parents know they are losers, and just want them out from under their feet for a few weeks."
"So I take it this wasn't a happy experience?"
"Too right, I guess that was about the time I realised I didn't fit in with the other kids...that I didn't want the things they wanted any more. They taunted me about my sister, saying that I was lucky to be shot of here... Yeah I hated those kids, and the perky campers who ran the place."
"Oh, I'm sorry."
She squeezed his hand reassuringly, and he smiled back. It felt comfortable to just keep her hand there, in his, so it stayed as he continued talking.
"But I'm sure they all got their comeuppance's, Scully. They're probably all arguing with their kids and their spouses like everyone else by now. Their rose-coloured spectacles have long since become transparent. I guess circumstances just made me see the world for what it really is from an earlier age."
"Kind of sad though, don't you think?"
"I feel sorry for them actually, they must have found it hard when their illusions were shattered... I never had to face that, I never had any illusions in the first place. The only illusions I saw were on The Magician, and I knew they were just TV. Okay, your turn."
Scully was dreading the question, almost as much as she was dreading having to answer it.
"Okay, I got it. Your first crush."
"There was this boy on the naval estate, and he was like 5 years older than me. At first I thought I liked watching him drive by because I admired his car, then I realised it wasn't the car I was admiring, but him. It came as quite a shock to someone who was as much a tomboy as me! Not that I ever told him, he had this gorgeous girlfriend, and wouldn't have looked twice at a 14 year old with braces."
"He didn't know what he was missing!"
"Thank you, my turn again...your first kiss."
"Okay, it was at college, the first proper one. A very awkward affair, I remember wondering all the time if I was doing it right, and figuring that I was when she kept coming back for more. She was seeing the guy upstairs though, so I soon finished it. Seems I gave her the kisses, and he gave her everything else! So she ditched me!"
"She probably has 6 kids by now!"
"Yeah, and they're all screaming around her ankles every time she tries to change the TV channel for her old man!"
"It does make you wonder what happened to all those people though doesn't it? I mean, are they all happy, or are they just sitting around wondering how things might have been?"
"I think everyone does that at some point, Scully, we're no different from other people."
"You think?"
She laughed, but saw that he was serious about the subject. Maybe everyone did ponder about things as much as she did, but it certainly felt as if she was the only one with this habit at times.
The music continiued in the background, and both caught the lyrics this time:

"Don't don't break the spell,
It would be different and you know it will
You, you make loving fun
And I don't have to tell you're the only one."