#i'm in a weird place where i feel both inadequate and shameless so i've been back and forth about posting here again

[melforbes]

before the gunfire

He had a mental points system for their homemade dinners, a way to gauge whether or not a dish was good enough to make again: four points for each clean plate, a point for a little mmm she could give throughout the meal, two points for every line of inquiry about the spices, broths, et cetera. So far, he’d tallied up five points - three moans and an are there Herbs de Provence in this? - before he’d even managed to try each of the vegetables in the dish, so unfortunately, a challenging, time-consuming braised beef was going in the to make again category. Sometimes, he loved being boastful about how he knew his way around their rickety-and-then-redone kitchen, but other times, he wondered why he didn’t just fire up the grill, throw on some chicken breasts, and call it a day instead.

“Do you remember a couple of Easters ago, when Bill’s kids weren’t in high school yet?” she asked, half of her attention on him and the other half on the pumpkin, carrots, and butternut squash on her plate. “Mom made braised beef, but she did it with potatoes instead.”

“I do,” he said. That Easter, while Bill and Mulder had washed and dried dishes as the children, under the command of enough Scully women to keep candy consumption to one piece per kid, Bill had asked Mulder if he actually planned on marrying his sister or if they were - verbatim - some kind of those modern types. Though Mulder instinctively wanted to gloss over the matter, to say oh, we’ve spoken about it, yes, yes, it’s certainly a conversation, he instead told the truth and, miraculously enough, received Bill Jr.’s blessing, regardless of how unnecessary, unneeded, or unsought that had happened to be. Mulder couldn’t forget that Easter if he tried. “It was delicious.”

“It was a bit greasy,” Scully said, then glanced to him with a soft smile.

What was that, a halfway-backhanded compliment, a jab at the traditional heirloom known as her mother’s classic recipes, a way to tell him that their Wednesday night after-work dinner outdid any and all holiday fare? That had to be at least three points.

“This is delicious,” she repeated. “Local vegetables, I assume?”

A compliment and an inquiry. Three points. 

“Yeah, of course,” he said. “Had to make the most of the season.”

With you, he didn’t say. They’d skipped strawberry season because of their separation, raspberry season because of the end of the world, and nearly even apple season because one or both of them had been too sick to merit a trip to a you-pick orchard. After a whirlwind of a summer, all of it in retrospect seeming to be only a confusing blur, he wasn’t going to let pumpkin and squash season go to waste, and he wasn’t going to pass up handing out candy at the local library with her on Halloween, and he wouldn’t dare miss a chance to have a real Thanksgiving with his family, a genuine one in which he taught his son how to carve a turkey while Scully laughed at the other end of the table, her two boys surely making a mess. Nowadays, with you was more than just possible; it was probable, and it was impending, and if the changing leaves outside and the woman sharing a delicious, challenging dinner with him hadn’t already made his heart full, he would feel himself grow blissful now.

“Speaking of,” she said with her mouth full, and to himself, he smiled; the best of Dana Scully’s traits, he found, were the societally uncouth but wholly human ones that she showed very few people, mannerless chewing and beer pong tenacity and a monthly subscription to a women’s website about finding the perfect orgasm all included, “my lease ends on the first of next month.”

He felt the creaky house still, the kitchen light overhead fall heavily upon them, the world grow more vivid in an overstimulated kind of way; he was suddenly aware of the way she held her fork, her nails well-kept but unpainted, the skin of her arms soft against that purple tee shirt that had been sitting in the dresser here for weeks. When was the last time he’d had a bowl of fruit on the table? Last month, they’d managed to start grocery shopping together again, and suddenly, there was a bowl of fruit on the table even though Dana Scully, a scientist who must understand plant hormones, should have known better than to mix bananas with apples, and her breakfast teas were back in the pantry, her favorite blanket hung back against the couch, her library books stacked on her bedside table. He’d stopped spreading his clothes throughout the closet and had started letting it seem half-empty so that she wouldn’t feel odd about hanging her scrubs in there, and what had started out as a drawer for her pajamas and spare clothes had turned into a spot for everything, from running headbands to pantiliners to some of his things that had gone missing since she’d left. Even now, a pile of toys for her dog sat on the couch, and the pooch was sleeping soundly in the office, glad to be away from the city for - Mulder counted - eleven consecutive days now. 

“Okay,” he said. Because she had been the one to leave, she needed to be the one who chose to come back; he refused to coach her through this conversation, one heavy with meaning but light with words. 

“I was thinking,” she said slowly, absentmindedly moving her fork around her near-empty plate, “that I wouldn’t renew.”

Meeting her gaze, he nodded with objectivity. “It’s your choice.”

He watched as her lips turned down, an awkward look on her face; she stared at her plate, her emotions akin to a rejection reaction. 

“Is that something you’d want as well?” she asked with quiet trepidation. 

A big conversation. If a meal can’t distract one from the real world, then is it a proper meal at all? Minus fifteen points.

“Yes,” he said sincerely. “But it’s ultimately your choice.”

“I won’t renew, then.”

“You don’t have to-”

“The whole kitchen is already packed up.” She went back to eating as though nothing had happened. “Not much is in my closet there anyway.”

It was odd, how he only nodded while they both let the conversation slip away, as though it hadn’t had any gravity toward them. Though he could still see the grain of the table with alarming clarity, his awareness still heightened, he also found that he wasn’t surprised by the turn of events, had practically expected that topic to come along at some point. In movies, he always saw the biggest milestones of life portrayed as exciting surprises - marriage proposals, promotions, watching your team win the World Series - but he’d found that all of the pivotal moments of his life were dull and normal, nothing in comparison to their aftermath. Back when they hadn’t been together, the concept of Dana Scully asking to move in with him would’ve made him concoct a fantasy in which, all of the sudden, they were in a whirlwind of romance and excitement, pawning off furniture and making the best of a mismatched living room, the askance followed by him lifting her up and twirling her around while she kissed his cheek. However, when he thought now of those milestones, he found comfort in the expectation, in that there were eventualities he could count on. When - and he did use when for this, not if - he asked her to marry him, not even with a for tax breaks cop-out but because he’d never found someone else with whom legal binds made him feel near euphoria instead of despair, he knew the askance would never be a surprise, but afterward, watching her admire a ring, seeing her in white because Dana Scully loved to honor such traditions, he knew he’d feel such wonder that he would refuse to let those moments go. Who needed brash transitions anyway, especially when dinners with Dana Scully felt this good?

Two clean plates. Four points each, but recovering from the earlier demerit would be a challenge. Reaching out, she went for his plate, was going to wash the dishes, but he stopped her, his hand coming over hers, and softly, he set their joined hands down on the table, looked up at her, tried to read what was on her mind.

“I’m really glad you’re coming back,” he gave softly, sincerely, reassuringly.  

She brought her other hand over top of his, looked down at her fingers. Then, she smiled, said, “Me too.”

Leaning forward, he went to kiss her in the casual way they always used to do, a brief post-dinner thank you regardless of who cooked, and just as her eyes closed, just as their lips were about to meet, he heard the sound of a car engine, so he tensed, waited, and surely enough, the sound persisted, came closer.

“Shit,” he said, then stood quickly, their tangled hands falling apart.

Opening her eyes with dumbfounded surprise, she watched as he headed for the window nearby, followed him uncomfortably.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, but as she met him at the window, she saw a Suburban quickly approaching, the long driveway stalling it but not for long.

“You didn’t-”

“No, of course not,” Mulder said, then took her hand again, pulled her away from the window. “Where’s your piece?”

“It’s, um,” she stammered, “my bag, it’s in my bag. I didn’t have a chance to-”

“Mine’s upstairs,” he said, then headed upstairs, out of sight, all while the car parked outside.

She tried to make out the shapes of the people in the car, and though she could see a few men, she couldn’t recognize their faces, her heart pounding all the while. Next to the coat rack, her bag sat, so she pulled out her safety-on glock, looked back and forth for a hiding spot, felt all of her tactical training fall away while her gaze drifted back to the staircase. She couldn’t hear Mulder anymore.

This can’t be happening again, she thought, then managed to pull herself into the office, hiding behind the half-open door. The dog, stirred from its sleep, stared up at her with sad little eyes; she closed her own.

Is God listening? she asked herself, and even though she figured the answer was no, she still asked grant me strength as she heard the locked front door break open.