Title: Practice
Author: Alelou
Feedback: Alelou123@aol.com
Rating: PG-13 for language
Keywords: MSR, Humor, Vignette
Spoilers:  Tooms
Disclaimer: 1013's and Chris Carter's, not mine
Summary:  Scully decides she needs practice before she 
can tell Mulder something important.
Notes:  Thanks to MystPhile for extremely helpful beta.


This morning I caught a glimpse of my partner sitting at 
his desk twisting a paper clip and staring off into 
space with the most melancholy look on his face.

And I thought, enough already.  That man needs to know 
that I love him.  

After all, I know that he loves me.  I used to agonize 
over it a bit, and there have been a few occasions when 
I was pretty convinced I was the last person he'd ever 
fall in love with.  But, frankly, those days are over.  
In the last year he's pretty much tipped his hand.  I 
could think of a host of reasons to pretend it ain't so, 
but the man loves me.  Doesn't mean he'll do a damned 
thing I tell him to, unfortunately, but he does love me.

But my guess would be that he's concluded it isn't 
mutual.  Or that I'm willing to just go on forever 
ignoring this thing between us.  Thus the low spirits.  
I think.  I've poked and prodded, but I can't discover 
any other cause for it.  It's not like he's having a 
crisis of faith in the existence of little grey men or 
anything like that.  He's just sad.

So I decide I should tell him that I love him.  That 
might fix it.  Might not, might totally screw things up, 
but my Mulder alarm is going off big-time and my 
instincts about him are usually on the money.  He needs 
to hear the words.  He needs for me to tell him.

There's just one problem.  

I can't.

xxx

We're in a perfectly good situation for it just a few 
hours later.  We're staked out in a car outside a 
doctor's office waiting for an appearance from someone 
an informant had suggested might be our old friend Dr. 
Scanlon.

Mulder is working his way through the last remnants of a 
bag of sunflower seeds and listening to an afternoon 
game while we wait.  I can usually be talked into 
letting him listen to the sports channel if it's a 
baseball game.  There's something very comforting about 
the sound of baseball.  I don't know why, exactly.  
Maybe it reminds me of the lazy summer days of my 
childhood.  I don't usually follow the game, but I enjoy 
the background noise.  Besides, baseball has held a 
special place in my heart since Mulder took it upon 
himself to teach me how to bat, silly man.

Unfortunately, there aren't exactly a whole lot of 
conversational openings here.  The sum total of our 
discussion for the last two hours has been:

Mulder:  "Mind if I listen to the game?"

Me:  "No, go right ahead."

Apparently it's a good game, and he's pretty intent on 
it.  I sit there and think, how do I start this?  
Usually Mulder is a little more conversational.  He 
tries to engage me -- pretty persistently at times.  
Maybe that's why I'm feeling this strange undercurrent 
of panic.  It's as if he's not trying anymore.  

So I sit there and the nervous tension forms a hard 
little ball in my gut.  He is oblivious.  It's the 
bottom of the seventh and there have been no hits.  A 
pitching duel.  I find them particularly dull, but 
baseball addicts live for this stuff.

"I'm going to go get something to drink.  You want 
something?"

Three balls, two strikes.  He barely registers my 
question.  "Sure, anything."

"Don't forget to watch for Scanlon."

A grunt.  Right.

I come back with two iced teas and another bag of seeds 
-- my love offering.

It's the top of the eighth.  A hit at last.  Mulder 
sighs and turns to me.  "Hey, thanks."

"It's iced tea," I say, meaning so much more than that.

He looks at me a little curiously.  "Great."

I'm tempted to add, "It's not root beer, Mulder, it's 
iced tea."  But then it occurs to me how embarrassed I 
will be if he doesn't know what the hell I'm talking 
about.  And it has been, what, over five years since 
then?  And hadn't he also taken that opportunity to 
insist that I call him Mulder, lying to me that he even 
made his parents call him Mulder?  

"You okay, Scully?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," I say, disgusted with myself.  He 
gives me a little smile and turns his attention back to 
the game.  The other pitcher is still working on a 
perfect game.  And then the fellow turns up, the one we 
thought might be Scanlon.  When I see him I think right 
away that he isn't, but Mulder chases after him to chat 
him up, pretending to be a pharmaceutical company 
salesman.  And of course it isn't Scanlon, just another 
doctor who looks a bit like him, who really did recently 
come here from Scranton, whose name really does turn out 
to be John Grey Smith.

The remaining would-be perfect pitcher gives up a run in 
the bottom of the ninth, as we head back to the office 
to go our separate ways.  No perfect game today.

Hell, I didn't even get off the bench.

xxx

After that, after my total inability to broach the 
subject, I decide that I need some practice.  It's how I 
do almost everything else, after all.  I'm a dead shot 
because I practice at the firing range every week 
without fail.  I don't end up wrestling with suspects 
that often, but just in case I work out at the gym every 
other day when we're in town, and I take practically 
every self-defense refresher the FBI gives, and that's 
saying a lot.  Maybe practice is what I need.

So as I'm leaving work, driving out of the parking 
garage, I think, "I love you, Mulder."  And then, I say 
it.  "I love you, Mulder."  It's not so bad to say.  
He's not there, of course, so it's easy as pie.  I say 
it a few more times before the rigors of commuting 
require more focus.

And then I get home and I'm walking around my kitchen, 
and I'm saying, "I love you, Mulder."  Just to practice.  
Slice the chicken breast.  "I love you, Mulder."  Tear 
the romaine.  "I love you, Mulder."  Slice the pepper.  
"I love you, Mulder."  Crush a little garlic.  "I love 
you, Mulder," I say.  "Though it's a good thing I don't 
plan on kissing you tonight."  

I put it all together in the salad bowl and pour in my 
minimum daily requirement of Caesar dressing.  "I love 
you, Mulder," I say as I put the bottle back in the 
refrigerator.

I take everything over to the coffee table so I can eat 
and watch the news.  Rather belatedly, it occurs to me 
that the place could be bugged.  Oh well, they'd 
probably just rejoice, figuring I've finally gone 
completely around the bend.  Maybe I have.  I've gone 
around the bend for Mulder.  "You know why I've gone 
around the bend like this?" I ask the room.  "Because I 
love you, Mulder."

Okay, that's enough practice for awhile.  I feel like an 
idiot.

xxx

After dinner, I contemplate my options.  I can go to the 
grocery store now, or I can go tomorrow after work when 
I'm hungry and cranky.  It's a tough call, even for me, 
but I decide to grit my teeth and go out.  In the car, I 
practice a little more.  "I love you, Mulder," I say.  
Talking in the car seems even easier somehow now that 
it's dark.  Nobody's going to look at my lips moving and 
wonder what that crazy woman is saying.  I could say, 
"Freeze!  FBI!" and traffic would just keep flying 
along.

I continue to practice in my head while I wait at the 
checkout for a new kid who can't find the code for 
scallions no matter how hard he tries.  Like Mulder and 
all the men I've ever known, he refuses to ask for help.  
I haven't got a clue how much they cost -- I needed 
scallions, so I got scallions.  Finally he gives up and 
just throws them in the bag.  

I have to admit that this offends my nature.  Now the 
store's inventory is all screwed up.  On the other hand, 
he's made me wait at least a bunch of scallion's worth 
of my time while he searched fruitlessly back and forth 
through the mysterious book of produce codes, so in that 
great ledger of the universe, we're even, right?  

And, by the way, I love you, Mulder.  Look at all the 
fun you're missing.  We could be waiting in line at the 
checkout together if I could just tell you I love you.  
Then you could tell me the reason this kid can't figure 
out the price of scallions is that he's really an alien. 

xxx

I get back to my apartment, lugging five plastic grocery 
bags that I don't dare put down for fear they'll flop 
over and spill their contents in the hallway.  Somehow I 
manage to put the key in the door and push it open with 
my foot.  

I didn't leave that light on.

I gently lower the bags onto the floor, trying to be 
quiet about it, but naturally they all start flopping 
over with a cascade of grocery noises.  I draw my gun.

"Scully?"

And there's Mulder, walking out of my bedroom, looking 
both relieved and embarrassed.  

I put the gun back.  "Mulder, what the hell are you 
doing here?"

"I got a phone call."

I give him a look that plainly states I don't consider 
that a complete answer.  But I also don't want anything 
defrosting all over the floor, so I start picking up my 
groceries.  He helps.

"You went to the grocery store," he observes.

"They don't call you a crack investigator for nothing."

He snorts gently and helps me gather stuff up.

"And your phone call?" I ask.

"Was pretty weird," he says, helping me put stuff away, 
which basically consists of taking stuff out of bags and 
putting it on the counter because he doesn't know where 
anything goes.  (I don't buy into that so-called eidetic 
memory for one second, by the way.)  "This voice I don't 
recognize said, 'Your partner is either losing her mind 
or she has something she wants to tell you.'"

I freeze.  Crap.  Obviously, the place *is* bugged.  Or 
the car, or both.  I should have known better than to 
expect even a moment's privacy for a major life event of 
any kind.

Mulder seems not to notice, continuing, "And then 
whoever it was hung up.  And you didn't pick up your 
phone.  So I came running over here.  I wasn't here for 
long before you arrived, thank God."

I try to keep moving, but I'm so pissed off I can't see 
straight, let alone remember where I should put this can 
of anchovies.

"Scully?"

Maybe if I just ignore him he'll give up and go away.

"Mind telling me what this is all about?"

"What I don't understand," I say loudly, not for Mulder 
but for the benefit of whoever is listening.  "Is why 
whoever is bugging this apartment thinks it's any of 
their fucking business to listen in on my fucking life, 
let alone interfere with it!"

"The apartment is bugged," I explain to Mulder, who 
looks at me with a "well, duh" expression, not to 
mention some shock at my use of language.  "I thought 
they gave it a clean bill of health just last week," I 
add.

"Who?" Mulder asks, then immediately realizes, "Oh."

Then it dawns on me.  

"You bastards!" I yell.  "You're gonna pay for this.  
You thought Las Vegas hurt, just you wait!"

"No, no, Scully, it wasn't them.  They would have just 
told me."

"They frequently tell you what's going on in my 
apartment?"

He looks shocked.  "Of course not."

"It was them, Mulder."  My eyes narrow.  "Did they tell 
you what I was saying?"

He looks genuinely puzzled and concerned.  "No."

I angrily stow the last of the groceries.

"How do you know it wasn't one of our friends in the 
Consortium?" he asks.

"I can't see why they'd tip their hands over something 
like this.  Not their style."

"So what is something like this?  What were you saying?  
Or are you in fact losing your mind?"  Judging from 
Mulder's expression, he's definitely considering it a 
possibility.

"I'm not telling you anything until this apartment is 
bug-free," I say.

He sighs heavily, then dutifully goes into the living 
room to start running through the routine.  Generally we 
rely on the gunmen and their high-tech equipment to do 
it for us -- I should have realized it gave them the 
perfect opportunity to plant one of their own.  

"You do realize this could take all night," Mulder calls 
plaintively from the other room.

"I'll make coffee," is my brisk response.

xxx

We don't find a damned thing - except plenty of dust 
bunnies.  It's two o'clock in the morning and we're 
pooped out on the couch, the place is a wreck, and the 
bug remains hidden.  I suppose it could be in the car 
instead, but I don't want to deal with that in the dark.

"You know, someone could just park outside and point a 
listening device in here if they wanted to," he points 
out.

I sigh.

"You really just don't want to tell me, do you," he says 
bleakly.  It's not a question.

"Actually, I very much want to tell you," I reply.  "I 
was practicing.  That's what they heard.  I just find it 
very ... difficult."

He sits up and stares at me intently.  "What's so 
difficult to tell *me*?"

I raise my eyebrow.  "We're still sitting in front of an 
audience as far as I'm concerned."

Suddenly energized, he gets up and flips through my 
CD's.  Soon Bach is blasting out of the speakers at a 
level likely to really annoy Mrs. Cropsey next door.  
Then he sits down next to me, takes a deep breath, knits 
his hands together, and turns to me.  "Just tell me, 
Scully."  Then he adds, tentatively, "Is it that you 
want to leave?"

Oh God, he really doesn't have a clue, does he?  "No, 
Mulder, not at all.  It's nothing bad.  At least I hope 
you don't think so."

He just looks at me, begging for release.

Okay, time to see if all that practice was good for 
anything.  I take a shallow breath, my pulse pounding so 
hard my whole body is vibrating, and then another.  And 
another.  And another.

"You gonna hyperventilate on me, Scully?" he asks, 
kindly.

The words simply won't come, damn it.  And unfortunately 
I really am getting a little lightheaded.  So I grasp 
his head and pull him down and plant a kiss right on his 
lips.  Then I release him, because I have to breathe, 
and I want to see if he got what I just told him.

Apparently he got the drift, because he's smiling at me 
and has clasped my hands in his.  "You know, if this is 
what you've been practicing all day, it's no wonder they 
think you've lost your mind.  Plus, I think we're 
definitely looking at video surveillance here."

"I love you, Mulder."

There.

He looks a little stunned, even though you'd think I'd 
pretty much tipped my hand already. He's looking at me 
the way he did that time he told me he even made his 
parents call him Mulder, and I still said I wouldn't put 
myself on the line for anyone but him.  Only this time 
he's not coming up with any joke.  Instead, in a choked 
voice, he asks, "That's what you were practicing?"

I nod.

He pulls me into a fierce hug and whispers in my ear, "I 
love you, too, Scully.  But you knew that, right?"

"On my good days," I whisper back.

"Always," he insists.  "Since the very beginning."

Okay, I'm not sure I really believe that, but I'm not in 
a quibbling mood at this point.  

So here's my plan:  I'm gonna kiss this man thoroughly, 
and then I'm going to make him take me someplace that 
isn't bugged and make sweet love to me all night, and 
then after we're both thoroughly sated with passion and 
ready to move back into the banalities of our not-so-
ordinary everyday lives, I'm going to think up some way 
to get even with the Lone Gunmen.

And then I'm going to practice it over and over until 
it's flawless and the poor bastards don't have a hope in 
hell.

THE END