Title: Flight Delayed (3/4)
Author: Tesla
Address: gah1093@hiwaay.net
Rating: NC-17 (sexual situations, adult language & lawyers)
Category: Mulder/Other
Spoilers: Assume that this alternate universe careens off track after "Field
Trip,"
     But spoilers for  "Millenium" and "Orison".
Archive: Sure, everyone, I would be in a tizzy of pleasure and tell everyone
I      knew.
Feedback: See above, only I'll also write charming replies.
Disclaimer: If Ten Thirteen is even reading this, settle with Duchovny!
Summary: Continuation of "Flying Under the Radar",  "Gaining Altitude", and
"Some Turbulence Expected"

THANKS to Emerex for excellent beta work, and general encouragement, and for
giving me my own little webpage at www.home.hiwaay.net/~gah1093; and to the
small select band of folks on my reading list-and Fran58's site, at
www.atmosphere.be/media/fran58, which first hosted my stories.


 Mulder didn't know what was going to happen next.

 He had spent all Sunday helping Scully clean up her apartment. Things
looked almost normal by the time he left. But he still couldn't sleep,
wondering what to say to Janet.  Seeing her again had jolted him back to
perspective, in a way that his New Year's Eve kiss with Scully had
significantly----not.

 Not a mistake, exactly, but a mis-step. After so long without Janet, he had
clung to Scully again. But this year, Scully did not bother to ask him what
he was going to do for Christmas. It was somehow clear to him that new
excursions to haunted houses were off the agenda. She didn't call him, and
he didn't call her. Careful spying informed him that Janet's car was gone
the appropriate number of days for a trip home for the holidays. He bought
another snow-globe, but he hadn't made the effort to give it to her.

Then, after he kissed Scully, he had thought for a minute-ten seconds,
really-that maybe they would change. That maybe she would show him something
aside from that comradely, fellow-soldier devotion. He knew that, in the
abstract, Scully was devoted to him, that she respected the work, and she
admired how he had kept looking for the truth. She knew that he would do
anything in his power for her. And that she would put her career and life on
the line for him.

But her feelings were all in the abstract. He didn't feel that she had one
gleam of affection for his flesh and blood. He needed some affection. He
needed some physical contact beyond a handclasp. The world hadn't come to an
end for them, and it should have. He was tired of being alone, and it was
clear to him that Scully didn't want him in her nice, tidy world, any more
than she really wanted him in her nice, tidy apartment.

His thoughts naturally went to Janet. She wanted him. He still had her key,
and she had never called to demand it back. She also hadn't sent his
belongings back to him, C.O.D., or worse, via Melvin Frohike. (And she was
quite capable of doing any of those things)

Mulder was still doing emotional long division problems in his head, when
Donnie Pfaster escaped from prison. When Scully shot Pfaster, and the
friendliest of the cops suggested that he get his partner a lawyer, he
thought, Who you gonna call?

So he called. And she came, although not without making her unhappiness
plain to him.  And when they were alone in the elevator, he knew that she
still cared. He knew he could move back into her apartment, and her life.

When she e-mailed her bill, he got an idea. He wrote a check for the entire
amount, and before giving it to the messenger, he wrote "I love you" on a
Post-It Note. Like a real geek, he thought, once he had sent it.

After that, he waited. Thank God Scully was upstairs with Skinnermost of the
morning; she would have caught on that something was up. (Or would she?) He
answered all his e-mail (including snotty questions from Accounting
regarding his expenses involved in going to California and Chicago),
polished up his incident report, and put away several files. Well, that
might have made her suspicious.

Scully returned from Skinner's office, without the expression of one who had
been treated to Skinner's imitation of the Iron Chef ("And the dish tonight
is: agent tempura!"). She sat down at her desk and booted up her laptop.
Mulder pretended to be absorbed in reading his stack of Weekly World News.

Then his phone rang.



 Janet had ridden about halfway to downtown D.C. when she realized, to her
horror, that she was still wearing her sneakers. The complete urban
professional look: business suit and running shoes. At least she had clean
underwear. She coughed, blushing bright red, and her seatmate gave her a
curious stare.

"What if he isn't there?" she asked aloud.
Her seatmate kindly ignored her.

 No, he messengered it this morning. He wouldn't do that and then vanish,
not after writing.that.She touched the note, folded in her pocket, for
reassurance.


 Then, she just had to go in and ask for him. Go in and give her name to the
guard. She'd been there before, with her first boss, escorting a defendant
who wanted to make a deal. The guard, incurious, took her name and Mulder's
extension, before calling Mulder's office.

 "He'll be right up, he said," the guard told her. "You can wait over
 there."
She sat down, clasping her hands on her lap over her briefcase. (Her last
coherent thought was that she should try to look like she was working, so
she had dumped the contents of her briefcase onto her desk, and filled it
with the contents of her purse.)

 "Hey," Mulder said behind her, and she started. Just like him to sneak up
on her. She stood up, and held out her hand. "Did you bring your car?" he
asked in a normal voice. He was wearing his patented "Fox Mulder, FBI"
expression.

 "I took the Metro," she said. "Are we going somewhere?"

 "I hope so," he said quietly. "My car's in the parking deck."

 "Okay," she said. He released her hand, and nodded towards an exit she hadn
't noticed. She walked in front of him, and he put one hand in the small of
her back to guide her.

 They walked for a few minutes in silence, until they reached the parking
deck elevators. He punched a button, the doors opened. They got in; she
noticed that even this elevator had a security camera. Finally, finally, the
doors opened and he led her around a concrete pillar. "My car's up there,"
he said, pointing up a ramp. "But this is the security camera's blind spot."
He scuffed the toe of his shoe through discarded cigarette butts. "As you
see."

 "Oh," she said, and looked up. His face was unbearably worried. She couldn'
t have that.

 "I love you," she said. "I'm crazy about-" but he had shoved her against
the pillar and was kissing her. Her briefcase fell out of her hand onto the
concrete. She ignored it.

 "I love you," he said.
 Behind them, they heard a door open. Mulder cast a harassed look over his
shoulder. "We better leave." He bent down for her briefcase, and put it in
her hand. "My car's over here," he said, and gently took her elbow.










--
"Some days it just doesn't pay to chew through the restraints."---Anonymous