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“Why is your place nicer than mine?”
Mulder says this every time he comes over.
The first time, he said it with a grimace, walking through the house, poking at backlit displays and cringing each time the house responded with alarming efficiency. Now, sometimes it’s a grimace, but more often he’s deadpan, just his customary greeting, their running joke. He hates the place, and Scully, in turn, not-so-secretly loves that he hates it. It’s endless entertainment for her, pitting Mulder against this sleek, seemingly sentient domicile. If she and Mulder sometimes appear to be opposites instead of like minds, it’s nothing compared to Mulder vs. this house. Complete and utter opposites. Sleek machine; rusted gear. Yin and yang, but not in balance. Mortal foes.
The house hates him back. Of this Scully is certain. The automatic taps don’t turn on and off for him. He’s invisible to its sensors. The alarm, on the other hand, blares every time he walks in the door. Sometimes, even, once he’s inside the door and has been for some time. He’ll get up at night for a drink of water and Scully gets jarred out of postcoital bliss by the klaxon siren of intruder alert, intruder alert, Mulder cursing at the sink in the kitchen, yelling for Scully to come turn off the alarm and turn the damn sink on for him.
If she yells back for him to punch in the code, he does the wrong birthdate or botches the spelling of Queequeg. More often than not, she pads out in bare feet, tying her robe, entering the right code, filling the glass with cold water, sleepily herding a grumbling Mulder back to the warm bed.
He’s adorable when he grumbles. Of this she is also certain. She says “yes, I know,” as he lists out his grievances, and she crawls onto his chest, kisses him between grievances until he’s finally interested in only the kissing.
This works for them. How, she’s not sure. It’s not an ideal arrangement where anyone is concerned; ideal being, for most people, seamless cohabitation. But she and Mulder have always thrived best with adversity. He likes a challenge; she likes to pose one. It’s their old tug and pull, his space and hers, codependent independence, contradictions galore.
It makes her feel like a kid. Or at least like the old days, Mulder coming by after work, or taking her home with him, a drawer of his clothes at her place, half of her clothes at his. It’s fun, temporary. After those long years of feeling so trapped by their circumstances, on the run and in hiding, it’s exquisite to have new experiences. They make things up as they go, relish their freedom again, invent new things they call dates and feel like giddy kids to get to spend time together.
The arrangement won’t last forever. She’s subletting this place; she still calls Mulder’s place home. They’ll figure it out when her time in this house ends. She is, she dares to think: happy.
Mulder is, she dares to think: happy too.
When she’s happy, he’s happy. He calls at night, talks for hours. He texts her dumb things in the morning. He comes over and screws up the house so completely it takes her a week to get it working again.
Just last week: he fritzed the toaster, then the coffeemaker, all with one breakfast, trying to make her scrambled eggs. He plays ongoing games with the fridge. “Paging George Orwell,” he said, the first time he went to pull out an apple and got advice on his diet. Now he brings the fridge random crap, things she would never eat, things he would never eat, conducting experiments, until the fridge looks like it was stocked by drunk frat boys, and Scully half-expects, one day, it will groan and give up.
He’s her squeaky wheel on the shopping cart. He’s her fly at the picnic. He’s her glitch in the matrix. He’s her person, and she loves him, she loves him.
“I’m getting you one of those things,” he said the other day, making gestures. “Those things that zoom around cleaning.”
She was wiping up granola he had spilled on the floor. He knocked his head against hers when he crouched down to help.
“Ouch,” Scully said, holding the bump on her forehead. “Mulder, those things don’t work.”
Mulder turned, asked the fridge, “Would you like a new friend?” in the slow, goofy way people spoke to babies. Scully tossed granola at him, which made him laugh.
They’re like that now. Playful, relaxed. It feels like a vacation. (“Like a fancy hotel,” Mulder says, making faces, when he has to poke touchscreens.) That’s the thing, Scully thinks. The place does not feel like hers. It’s all blond hardwoods, zen fountains; Mulder frowns at her sideways, knows her better than that. But it’s something she needs at this point in time: a getaway, a sanctuary. Mulder seems to get it. He engages in battle, but it’s with the house, not with her. They both get a kick out of it.
He does other things too. He feeds her fish in the koi pond. He brings her books for the shelves. He sits in front of the fireplace and tosses grapes at her mouth until there’s six on the floor for each one that she catches.
“We’ve earned this,” he says once, late at night, sitting with her, watching the wall of windows. Half the view is outdoors; the other half, their reflections. They’re indistinct, blurred together. Scully takes the last sip of wine and lays her head on his shoulder.
It’s not home, but it’s something. Something they both need, Scully tells him sometimes. She’s a Navy brat, Mulder says; of course she needs changes of scenery instead of feeling tied down. Maybe that’s true; maybe that’s bullshit. The part that matters is the way that he says it, like it’s a known fact about her. Like it’s okay by him. Like of course she’s that way, and he wouldn’t change anything, it’s what makes her who she is.
He’s like that these days. More aware; not as selfish. Not as needy; more whole. “Who are you?” she’ll say, and it makes him grin, proud, like it’s a goal he’s accomplished. Fox Mulder was born, but the man he is now is someone he made himself, forged through the rough years and hardships. “Who are you?” he’ll say back, and play with the ends of her hair, in its short bob again. She had debated the haircut; she saw the look on his face the first time that he saw it and knew she made the right choice.
They’re new, and they’re old. They’re together— that matters. He hates the house, she loves him. They’ll leave work and he’ll say, “Let’s go home tonight,” and she knows where he means. Her place is nicer than his, that’s what he keeps saying. But home is with him.