Title: The Bereaved (1/1) Author: RocketMan >lebontrager@iname.com< Disclaimer: Mulder and Scully belong to CC, 1013, and Fox. No fringe is intended. Note:::::This wonderfully has nothing to do with Rift or Reach. I need a happy break. MSR, Mostly Angst Free (MAF) and minor SPOILERS for everything. TAKE NO HEED OF THE TITLE, I THOUGHT IT WAS FUNNY. ~~~~ The Bereaved ~~~~ Scully shivered and hunched further into the swivel chair, hoping Mulder's roving eyes maybe didn't see her. She sighed. He saw her. A grin lit his face and he bounded over to her, slapping a file folder down on her desk. The other agents watched with growing amusement. She had found it so much easier to ignore their comments when they'd been in the basement, now all too frequently she found herself hotly taking up for him, causing her own career's demise. "Hey Scully," he said joyously, and she shook her head. She had to change her attitude. He wasn't really this . . .peppy. Looking back up to him, she discovered the more proper look, one of slight boredome and irritation. That was her Mulder. "We have to follow around a funeral procession." She stared at him, shaking her head. "Why?" Shrugging, he pulled the folder open, twisting his chair so that his long legs straddled the back, watching her lean back. "Some. . .tip, I think. We're supposed to watch, make sure there are no hand-offs, no money exchanged. Here's a photo of the guy." He handed her a color snapshot, complete with the Kodak label on the back, one balding, old man with faint rims of black hair and a black beard. She studied it, traced along his eyes, the way his nose was offset, the angle of his jaw. Mulder took it from her hands. "You don't need to memorize this one, Scully. He's the dead guy." She glared at him as he handed over a different picture, this time a mug shot, grainy and poorly developed. "So, we follow around the funeral procession, make sure we aren't made." She looked at the picture, found the man's eyes to be clear blue and unsettling. She knew she'd recognize him in an instant. "All right. When?" He motioned for her to follow him out. ~~~~ It was raining, Mulder was snoring, and the bereaved stood huddled inside the green and white striped tent as their loved one was interred. She wanted to laugh. "Mulder?" "Mm. . ." "Mulder, wake up." The car was getting cold from sitting there, the rain lulling her to sleep too. "Sc-. . ." "Mulder, right now. Get up." He jerked his head and blinked at her, focusing. "Anything happen?" "Just some crying. That guy is really fake, Mulder. I mean, sobbing on the wife's shoulder?" Mulder frowned. "Some guys are sensitive, Scully." "He's crying harder than she is." "Oh." She turned to him and grazed a cheek with her knuckle. "I know you're bored, Mulder. But think you can stay awake?" He took out a sunflower seed and bit the husk. "Mm, maybe. I just hope it rains sleeping bags or something. I'm freezing." She rolled her eyes as his lips moved silently, his eyes on the crowd of black clad mourners. "I hope it's not like that when I die." She frowned, grabbing a seed from his slightly open palm. "Why?" He made a face, attempting to stop her, but she bit on it, and he instead blew air out between his lips. His face blanched and he raised an eyebrow, and she realized this was the most expressive she'd seen him since Van Blundht had taken over his body. That thought frightened her. "Why, Mulder?" "I mean, all the pomp and circumstance for someone none of them even really liked, the false grief for a man they think is better off dead, and none of them even care he lived." She was silent for a moment. "I'd care." He glanced to her, his mouth opening, shutting, opening again. "What?" "I'd care you had lived. I do care." He sat there, maybe stunned, maybe scared, his body and expressions frozen for a brief moment. He reached out his hand and offered her another seed. She took it, crunching it loudly between her teeth, recognizing that he had nothing to say in the face of that. "How can you eat these?" she said, sometime later. The rain slated down, the mourners listened quietly to the priest give some kind of last rites, or final prayer, or something. "What do you mean?" She watched him crank down the window and spit his shell into the rain, then dump the shells he had simply spit into his hand over the side too. "They're so salty. It makes me thirsty." He grinned. "Rain right here." "Rain?" "To drink." An excited, 'I-have-a-new-X-File' look came over his face, and she watched in wonder and horror as he opened the car door. "Mulder. . ." she said, voice warning. "Come on, Scully. Get out." "Mulder, you get out. This is dangerous." She reached over and snagged his coat as he pulled his body out into the rain. "Mulder! You're compromising-" "Come on, Scully. Drink the rain." "Mulder, no." He was over on her side of the car, and before she could lock her door, he had snatched it open. "See, Scully, this is fun." "Somehow, Mulder-" She gasped as the stinging cold rain slapped her face, shivered as his hands tugged her right out of the car. He was holding her like they were newlyweds or something. "How's this for compromising?" he said. Furious, soaked, she pushed at his hands, making him fall into the side of the car, his hip taking the brunt. Dragged from her seat, she stood there, shivering, wet, her fingers wrapped tightly around his biceps, too stunned to move. "You look like a cat, Scully." Her eyebrow arched and he laughed, squeezing her shoulders. Thoughts of Morris and Eddie Van Blundht and morph men with mean eyes came back to her. "Mulder? Is it really you?" She was surprised when his face turned serious again, and he slammed her car door, then pinned her against he frame. "Scully." "Mulder?" "Scully, it's really me." She didn't relax. In fact, she tensed. Because his lips had crashed into hers like thunder, his tongue dancing across her lips like lightning, the rain mixing with the heat of his mouth. She gasped, and got his tongue. Then she melted. Maybe it was the heat, maybe it was the water, visions of Dorothy and the Wicked Witch flashing through her head, but she positively sank into him. When he pulled away, he was looking straight in her eyes and he laughed, loudly, almost girly, almost scary. The bereaved turned as one, faces a mixture of annoyance and curiosity. He grabbed her by the waist and hoisted her to meet his lips again, her hips cradled between the car and his body. She eagerly met him, letting her own storm rage across him, making him shocked this time, causing *him* to melt. She pulled away, struggled to get down, and he set her on the ground, staring at her as if she'd suddenly grown wings. He tilted his head until it touched her forehead, his thumbs tracing the lines of her mouth. "There's no place like home," she said. He grinned. "And here you are again. Saving the world." ~~~~ adios RM did anyone catch the spoilers for dreamland, small potatoes, uh. . .detour, bad blood, pine bluff variant, triangle, even Erlenmeyer(sp?) Flask?