TITLE: A Reasonable Compromise AUTHOR: Jess M. EMAIL ADDRESS: snarkypup@mindspring.com DISCLAIMER: Nope, don't own them. DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT: Anywhere, just let me know. SPOILER WARNING: None, unless you haven't seen the Pilot, which makes you pretty sad, if you ask me. Go rent it, or something. RATING: PG (It's ok Darla, let it out) CONTENT WARNING: None. CLASSIFICATION: UST, MSR SUMMARY: Mulder and Scully, um, talk. About their relationship. My God! That's never been done before! AUTHOR'S NOTES: I used to live in the area this is set in. It was crowded and expensive and I hated it, yet lately, I've been missing it for some inexplicable reason. That's it. (I know, you're all fainting in shock at my brevity). Email me with feedback. I'm making a giant mobius strip to fascinate the neighbors. Visit my site for all my fiction, lovingly archived by Galia: http://galias.arjika.com/Jess/jess.htm Then visit Galia's site for more great fiction! http://galias.arjika.com/visions.html A Reasonable Compromise It had been such a beautiful day, and he didn't want to spoil it. More than anything in the universe, he realized, he just didn't want to spoil this one, sweet thing. They had finished the case and gone to dinner at a restaurant on the pier. A place with about fifty different kinds of fish and view of the bay as the sun set behind them, drawing the light from the sky in slow degrees of pink and lavender. Scully laughed and let him pick an expensive white wine that tasted, ever so slightly, of apricots. She had something exotic, some strangely-named Caribbean fish that tasted, or so she said, just like lemon sole. He ate salmon so good he knew he would be thinking about it for days afterward, tasting the sharp dill and the buttery pink flesh of the fish on his tongue like a memory. He ordered coconut crème brulee for desert and she let him, dipping out little half-spoonfuls under his watchful eye, succeeding in eating most of the desert and all of the plump little raspberries on top while maintaining the impression of a bird-like appetite. After they finished eating, she stepped out onto the deck and stood watching the lights of the city. "It's so beautiful here," she said. "So different from DC." And it was, despite the tourists and the tacky shops with bad, pricey paintings. There was something European in this place, flavoring the fish, the water, the little purple crabs that danced over the rocks of the jetty. A new moon had risen, white and round as a china plate. It was sliding across the rich purple sky to hover over Alcatraz and San Francisco, over the twinkling distant lights of the Bay Bridge and the lower-set glow of Oakland. Angel Island, a bird sanctuary, cast its black, unlit shadow across the curve of the bay and formed a backdrop for several sailboats, rigged with white strings of Christmas lights. Scully shivered and let Mulder slide his arms around her, just beneath her breasts. She covered his arms with her own and leaned back against him. God, it was so perfect, that evening. It made him ache all over, like the aftermath of a long, satisfying run. He was searching for something to say to her, driving through the tourist-crowded streets of Sausalito, the night still thrumming in his muscles and veins, like electricity. And then he remembered that he knew something she didn't, and decided to tell her. "Hey Scully," he said and she turned to look at him. The moon, still hovering over the water and sending out one long wavering path of light, had distracted her. "You hear about Willits and Burke?" She shook her head. "What about them?" Her voice was warm and lower than usual, relaxed even in the sterile Taurus. He rolled down her window, without asking her, just with the press of a button. She sniffed the air appreciatively and sighed. "Big secret," he grinned and tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. "They're moving in together. For obvious reasons, no one at the bureau is supposed to know." Scully's jaw literally dropped. He was surprised at her shock. It had seemed so obvious to him that their friends, Don Willits and Pam Burke, partners in the Organized Crime division, were together. Apparently, Scully hadn't known, despite hours spent goofing over beers after work or dinners at various apartments. The passion between the other two had always enervated him, made him edgy for days. How could she not have felt it? "Well," she said, her voice suddenly strained. "That's interesting. Since when have they...?" "Um..." He thought about it, but couldn't place quite when the change had taken place. "I don't really know. For a while now, the last six months at least. I can't believe you didn't notice. What happened to that feminine instinct into these things?" "I guess it malfunctioned." She turned back to the moon and the water, her face still. "Isn't it good news?" he asked gently. "Aren't you happy for them?" "Of course I am," she said automatically. "That's wonderful. How long have they been partners?" "Year-and-a-half, I think," Mulder replied. "Wonder why now?" she said, her voice soft. "What changed for them?" "I don't know," Mulder said truthfully, bothered by her discomfort. Was this becoming another conversation about them and as usual, he wouldn't quite get it until he'd somehow fucked it up? He was trying so hard to be careful. "Well, I'll tell you one thing," she said. "I don't think I could do it." "Do what?" he asked, his stomach sinking. "Just move in with someone else. I'm too set in my ways. I don't think I even want to anymore." Mulder was astonished. He swallowed several times before replying, trying to get rid of the sharp taste of bile in his throat. He'd just assumed... eventually... Jesus, had he been so wrong, all this time? "Why not?" he asked, which seemed the obvious reaction. "Like I said," she reiterated. "I'm too set in my ways. You remember the time we went undercover together. Would you want to live with me?" Swallowing the answer that floated around in his mouth, threatening to spill out and sink them both, he merely replied: "So what you're saying, Scully, is that you're unwilling to give up a perfectly squeezed tube of toothpaste in favor of a long-term, fulfilling relationship?" She sighed again, and brushed her hair from her face to tuck it behind her ear. He'd been enjoying her softer curls all afternoon, and was sad to see them given up for the argument. "When you say it like that, Mulder, it sounds stupid. But I know you know what I mean." "I know in theory," he agreed, amazed by the amount of traffic on the road at that time of night. He cursed it, hating to draw even an ounce of concentration from what he was saying, what she was trying to tell him. "But I don't feel the same way." "Right," she said slowly. "So you'd be willing to put all your clothes in the hamper and not bounce the basketball in the living room for the right woman, that's what you're saying?" "Exactly," he nodded. "But I suppose men grow up with the idea that their idyllic days of bachelor freedom will someday end with domestic tyranny, Scully. We're resigned from boyhood." She snorted and looked away, her face hardened to him. It occurred to Mulder, suddenly, that there were several nasty refutations to her argument and they all boiled down to one thing, so he said it. "Face it, Scully, you aren't saying you couldn't live with someone else. You're saying you couldn't live with me." "Trust you to turn this into a conversation about yourself," she replied coldly. "Say it isn't so." "It isn't so," she said, but there was no conviction there. "I'm not saying I could live with you, Mulder, though maybe I should point out that I very nearly do anyway, but that I couldn't live with anyone else, regardless of identity." "Bullshit," he said succinctly and she glared at him. "Let's say, Scully, that you met some nice Navy man, home on leave. You fell in love and decided to move in together. He's anally clean and tidy, doesn't mind you travelling on a case, leaves you with time for yourself... you'd do it in a second." "You're saying I could live with my father..." Her voice was icy now. "...But not with you." "It was hypothetical." "Certainly, Mulder, if the man were willing to absolutely respect my boundaries, I could consider it. But that's not what relationships are about. There are compromises. Always." "Indeed," he said, "I agree whole-heartedly. And maybe that's it, Scully, a combination of what you just said." "Enlighten me as to the hidden meaning of my words," she teased, but her voice had lightened just enough to let him know she wasn't angry with him, exactly. "Well, you said you practically live with me already, correct?" She nodded. He plowed ahead, seeing a light at the end of the tunnel, though it wasn't the result he wanted, exactly. He wasn't sure why he was so eager to validate her claims. "I, personally, think we could share a great deal more and still not be as close as most people who live together, but that's just me," he said. She nodded again, irking him. "At any rate, you also said that any relationship is a series of compromises, right?" "Right," she responded, squinting at him suspiciously. "So who has made the most compromises in this relationship, Scully? Who makes them every single day?" "Me?" she asked, sounding unsure. "Precisely. You've given up so much in staying with me, Scully, and I'm not just talking about the horrible things. I'm talking about your career, your sense of order in the universe, sleep, regular meals, pets..." "My sanity," she said, but she was smiling, slightly. "Not yet," he said thankfully, "but that's what I mean. You compromise all day long. Maybe when you get home, you just want some time where things are done your way." She seemed to consider this, cocking her head to one side and watching the dark ring of the salt marsh as it broke the moon's bright path. "Maybe," she conceded. "That certainly sounds possible." "Not that that leaves me in any better position," he noted dryly. "In fact, I think I've just argued against myself." "Maybe not," she said slowly, and he let her take her time to formulate her thoughts. "You make compromises too, I assume?" "You should see the cases we don't take, Scully." Smiling, she lowered her head for a moment. "But not as many as I do, granted." "Granted." "So if we were, theoretically, Mulder... I'm speaking purely in theory here." "I understand," he said, feeling a strange tightening in his chest. "If we were to move in together, theoretically..." "You've established the theoretical nature of this conversation, Scully, relax." She didn't appear to, but continued on. "Then you would owe me, would you not, a little reasonable consideration, in light of my many daily sacrifices?" He thought about it for all of ten seconds and deemed the request totally reasonable. "Absolutely." "Whereas a perfect stranger, not understanding the nature of my profession, or my sacrifices for it, wouldn't owe me anything, would they? In fact," she continued, gathering steam as they pulled off the highway at their exit, "I might owe them more consideration to their need for control than I was willing to give and I wouldn't be able to justify it by saying that I defer to them during the day, so to speak, would I?" "Probably not," he agreed. "So in fact, to refute your earlier statement, Mulder, I'm not saying that I couldn't live with you at all. I'm saying you may be the only person..." They both stopped. He because the car was now sliding into the parking space outside their hotel rooms and she because she was about to say something quite different than she had probably thought she would at the beginning of the conversation. Ah, the unique nature of their destination, he thought. Here they were. "I may be the only person you could live with," he finished, not too roughly. It was no good jarring her further. "Well, that's not exactly what I thought I..." she began and then sighed. "Besides, it was only theoretical." "I know," he told her tenderly. "I understood that from the beginning." They were both silent for a moment, pondering what had just been said. "You're going to use this against me, somehow, I know it." She was almost, but not quite, smiling. "Probably," he said, nodding. "Knowing me as we both do." "So," she countered, changing the subject without changing it at all. "Willits and Burke... did he pop the question yet?" Mulder shook his head, twisting in the seat to look closely at her. She didn't seem too rocked by her conclusion, in the end. That had to be a good sign, right? He tried to picture himself, picking up his underwear and tossing it in the hamper. It wasn't so hard to see, after all. Didn't he live with other people once, long ago? Hadn't they expected certain things? He was sure they had, and he had managed, at least in deed, to meet and sometimes exceed their expectations. He grinned back at her. "Not yet. He claims this is a 'trial period', to see if they can handle it." She nodded thoughtfully. "I'm sure they'll be fine," she said. "They've been together a year-and-a-half, after all; that's longer than many courtships." "Much longer," he agreed. Without further consultation, they opened their respective doors and stepped out of the car. Their rooms were next to one another, but didn't connect. It was a very cheap, grubby little motel, for the area, with a sign shaped oddly like a coffin standing on end. It was still $80 a night, each. He paused at his own door and stared at her. She was looking back at him with something between apprehension and resignation. "Good night, Scully," he tried. Her face fell, just slightly. Perhaps someone who didn't know her well wouldn't have seen it, but he knew her very, very well. "Good night, Mulder," she said and stepped into her room. Fifteen minutes later, just as he was loosening his tie with his own mixture of resignation and something else, she knocked on his door. He opened it to find her standing, shivering, in her robe. "I need you to take a look at something," she said, her voice husky. His stomach dropped and whirled for a moment. He thought he might be sick, but in a good way, if such a thing were possible. She peered past him into the darkened interior of his room. He followed her gaze, saw her take in the already-rumpled bed, the clothing falling out of his suitcase in a messy cascade onto the floor. He'd been searching for clean shorts, and failing to find any. When he looked back at her, a wicked grin was spreading over her features. Features that had until then, he realized, been just as mildly nauseated as his own. "In my room," she said firmly, and pulled him out of the door by gripping both ends of his tie. End one of one. No smut, I know. Email me and bitch.