Title: Serendipity


Author: Mary Parker


Rating: G-ish


Spoilers: The Goldberg Variation, The Unnatural, FTF (briefly)


Disclaimer:  Not mine.  CC's, Fox's, 1013's.  


Summary:  When did Scully start smilling again?





He saw her smile in Chicago and it startled him.  


Four separate occasions and he was floored each 


time. She smiled at the little boy, she smiled 


at Henry's machine, she smiled at the gas 


station attendant with his lotto ticket, and she 


even smiled at one of his very own jokes.  


Astounding.  It had seemed as if she would 


always look at the world with that guarded level 


stare that made his insides ache, the one he'd 


gotten for his trick with the elevator in the 


sidewalk.  Maybe that one was a Mulder special.





He realized he couldn't remember when she'd 


stopped smiling, or when she'd started again, 


but she seemed comfortable with it, like the 


smile wasn't something she had to work up to.  


Maybe he just hadn't noticed the drought had 


broken, though he'd noticed the paucity of the 


desert years when he never saw her teeth.  


She'd smiled and laughed in the early days of 


their partnership, he thought.  At him, maybe; 


he couldn't remember.  The photographic memory 


that had carried him to the top of every class 


he'd ever taken was shaky since.  Since the 


surgery he didn't recollect, since waking up to 


Scully's anxious face with a bandage on his 


head in a high-security facility neither of them 


were cleared for.  He didn't like those parts, 


so in his head it was always "since" now, just 


that marker without the clauses, a meaningless 


metonomy to contain the horror of the violation 


of his brain.





But Scully smiled these days, and it was a 


mystery more profoundly thrilling than any 


X-File.  The last grin he could remember was 


the night he'd taught her to play baseball.  


That had been a night to preserve - her warm 


backside tucked against the curve his body made 


around her had been a tantalizing experience, 


though it hadn't led as far as he'd briefly 


imagined.  Afterwards, in the parking lot, she'd 


lounged against her car in that way she had of 


doing things when she remembered she was a woman.  


Maybe she was forgetting she was a consummate 


professional instead - he hadn't determined 


which it was, but knew he lived for those moments.  


Her hair had fallen across her face, but it 


couldn't conceal the brilliance of her smile.  


She was thanking him and all he could think was, 


old son, if you've ever loved a woman, it's this 


one.  This is a Moment: to tell her, to kiss her, 


to touch her face.  But as he'd gathered the 


courage and leaned forward, she'd tossed her head 


to discipline her hair, and he had to settle for 


whispering in her ear. 





"It's good to see you happy."





She had looked up at him, all honest blue eyes 


and sweetly curved lips, studying him.  "Thank 


you, Mulder."  The weight of the words staggered 


him.  She had a way of putting years of their 


history into simple words, metric tons of emotion 


in a couple of syllables.  With little phrases like 


that, she wrung the tears and terrors from awful 


nights and brought peace to the starry dark.  





He teetered towards her, just far enough to seem 


like his usual invasion of her personal space. 





"We should do this more often."  I love you, he 


had meant to say.  





"We should," she said, still alight.  She reached 


for his hand and squeezed it warmly.  "Good night, 


Mulder."  And he let her get into her car and drive 


away.  For himself, it took several hours of lying 


on the hood of his car gazing at the stars to 


recover from the implications of his flirting and 


her tender regard.  Even now, walking the streets 


of Chicago with her, he got aroused thinking of the 


way their bodies had fitted together and the way she 


had responded to his banter and not entirely ignored 


his attraction.





And here in Chicago she smiled and he didn't know 


what it meant.  She didn't want to be here, she'd 


said.  She had come into his hotel room last night 


and recited a list of reasons their presence was 


unnecessary while he was trapped in the shower.  


When he emerged, hips swathed strategically in a 


towel, she'd eyed him and continued with her litany 


on how luck was not a crime.  He stayed in the towel, 


trying to goad her out of the room, but she was 


implacable, wearing her doctor's face as the water 


dripped from his hair to his shoulders.





"People don't get lucky in plane crashes anyway," 


she'd finished dismissively.  





"I don't know," he said, unable to resist and 


feeling vulnerable with so much skin bare.  "Last 


moments on earth?  Tell me you wouldn't want to 


get lucky."  





She'd rolled her eyes but moved over to make room 


on the bed for him.  He thought about wrestling 


her for the remote but it seemed unwise in his 


precarious terry-cloth situation.  They ended up 


watching The Daily Show and studiously ignoring the 


intimate atmosphere.  He nearly kissed her again 


during the credits, had drifted nearer when she 


suddenly said, "But I only fly with you these days, 


Mulder."





There was nothing to say to that.  He had taken the 


remote then, flipping through the hotel's limited 


channels to settle on weather radar.  He stared 


blankly at it, aware of her body inches away.





"Sometimes there's no good way to amend a 


statement," she murmured after a moment, and put 


her shoulder briefly against his.  She had taken 


off her jacket.  He could feel the droplets of water 


still on his skin soak the thin fabric of her shirt.  


"I didn't mean I wouldn't want to spend my last 


moments with you, Mulder, wherever or however they 


occured."  With that, she had padded off to bed.  By 


morning, Mulder was a weary expert on the weather of 


Cook County.





Now at the end of the day here they were, side by 


side on the plane as usual.  He'd given her the window 


seat as always; she didn't sleep on planes as well as 


he did, which was ironic because she was a champion 


sleeper at all other times and he stayed up for days 


for no reason.  They were on the runway waiting to 


taxi and takeoff.  He knew this was the part she hated, 


the wait, so he cast a line over the pools of his mind 


to hook a topic of conversation that wouldn't make her 


even more skittery.  That was the catch: certain 


subjects made Scully more fretful than the ten thousand 


reasons she could come up with about why the plan 


hadn't taken off yet (though she would admit that 


99.8% of them were things like "other planes on runway, 


please stand by").  Bringing up something about their 


relationship, or friendship, or partnership, whatever 


the hell it was, was tantamount to announcing there 


was a bomb on the plane, though.  On flights where 


Scully was that upset, Mulder spent the whole time 


watching her look out the window in a determined way.  


So: the case.  





"That turned out well," he said cheerfully.  "The FBI's 


money well spent."





She turned her face to him and he realized again how 


small airline seats really were, and hwo close together.  


And how long her eyelashes were.  "We didn't do much, 


Mulder."





"Cause and effect, Scully.  If we weren't there to be 


cogs in Henry's big crazy Rube Goldberg machine of a 


life, who knows how his luck would have gone?"





"Mulder," she was warming to the discussion, focused 


on it, "you can say that about anybody's life.  What 


if we didn't meet this person or that person?  What 


if I hadn't been assigned to you, or if you had 


stayed in psychology?  It's an infinite universe.  


You can't play that game."





"Ah, Scully, you do keep me honest," he said.  





"Somebody has to."  She looked out the window.  


Mulder sensed he was wading into dangerous territory, 


having evoked their almost-kiss in his hallway.





"Cause and effect, though," he persevered.  "You'll 


admit we played a part.  The eye, the buzzer, your 


lottery suggestion."





"Granted we played a part, but if Henry Weems was 


really as lucky as you say he was, one can assume 


that things would have worked out on their own.  Why 


wouldn't other cogs work as well as we did?"  She 


looked at him again, just a hint of triumph in her 


eyes.  "Not so neatly, perhaps, as simultaneously 


fulfilling his wishes and the FBI's, but his will, 


and his luck, seemed unstoppable."  She'd beaten him 


at Mulderlogic.  But she wasn't smiling anymore: her 


eyes were serious and sad again, and he thought of 


her quip in the hospital.  'Hell, I just beat him,' 


she'd said, as if she were a person whom serendipity 


had abandoned.     





"Your luck isn't so bad," he said, and kissed her, 


almost by accident.  She didn't draw away, which 


suprised him enough that he almost stopped kissing 


her.  The response of her mouth to his wasn't 


tentative or wild but accustomed somehow, as if they'd 


done this a hundred times instead of once, but it 


didn't make things less thrilling.  He felt the 


exploratory flicker of her tongue through her parted 


lips and answered it; he forgot to breathe and had to 


break away from her to inhale.  Her eyes were dreamy.  


Under them, the plane rumbled as the brakes disengaged 


and they started down the runway.





"I didn't mean that I think I'm a lucky thing in your 


life, or that you're lucky to have me around, because 


I think I'm more of a bad luck charm," he rambled 


nervously.





"Mulder," she said sweetly, and put one perfect 


fingertip to his lips.  "Shhh."





Then she put her perfect lips to his again, just for 


a moment, and looked out the window.  She was smiling.