The best solution to a dank, cold, dark, dreary day had to be cookies.
It wasn’t cleaning. It wasn’t sleeping. It wasn’t washing laundry or folding clothes. It wasn’t paperwork.
Therefore, it had to be cookies.
Chocolate chunk bars, peanut butter blossoms, oatmeal raisin circles, Russian Tea cakes, nut cups (the name would forever make her grin naughtily into her shoulder), Almond press cookies.
She’d made them all and eaten them all at some point in her life but right now, she wanted them all.
And she had an entire day to do it.
Mulder was off with the guys doing unintelligibly mumbled ‘fact gathering’ which she wanted absolutely no part in but made her keep her phone within reach and $400 for bail by the front door … just in case.
A baking frenzy the size of Scully’s ambitions necessitated a trip to the grocery store, which she did with clenched teeth and slightly combed hair stuffed under winter cap. She hated the store, she hated dealing with vibrating carts and things too far back on the top shelf which required her to either scale surreptitiously or fetch a lovely man attached to an annoyed woman to reach things for her and by far, she hated waiting in that damn checkout line with random people discussing random things to pass their time while invading hers.
Making it home alive and considerable lighter in the bank account, she set her wares down, slapped her hands together and dug out every bless-ed bowl she owned.
This was going to be fun.
Ten minutes into her cookie making orgy, she cranked her CD player up, sounds of Bryan Adams, Alanis Morrissette, Billy Joel and Journey intermingling on shuffle, herself singing quietly as she buttered, egged, floured, sugared and powdered.
First batch in, cooking well.
First batch out, burned to a fucking crisp.
First batch 2.0, cooking well.
First batch 2.0, burned to a fucking crisp.
Twenty minutes later, oven declared on the fritz and Scully pissed at the entire damn world.
Her mother wasn’t a scrap of help, considering she was out of town and seemed to have taken the power along with her, her house dark and cold, transformer across the street still sparking, electric company truck just setting up for what she could only assume was going to be a very long day.
At least she hadn’t unloaded everything from the trunk of her car.
Hauling all that crap upstairs put her in an even more foul mood but for God’s sake, she would be having homemade cookies and nothing was going to stop her.
Freaking soggy ass elevator, soaked socks, stringy hair, wet wool reeking hat, sodden coat, ripped grocery bag whirlwind of a shit day so far.
Mulder, at least, had power.
Granted, there was no Mulder, but she had a key, a working oven and the will to make one edible cookie.
It only she had remembered the mixer.
1,000,000 spoon strokes later, her shoulder was numb and her fingers stiff but she had chocolate chip cookie dough ready for chocolate.
Fuck Nestle and the forgotten bag of chocolate chips still sitting on her counter.
Digging around Mulder’s cupboards, she found Reese’s Pieces and M&M’s, sketchy in their expiration date but not to tooth breaking stage so she went for it, stirring them in with a vengeance, needing a cookie like humans need air and Mulder needed a keychain every new place they went.
He walked in his apartment just as she burned the living hell out of her fingers, his hot pad collection leaving something to be desired. The free-formed cursing made him smile even though he couldn’t actually see her around the corner but since he smelled heaven-sent desserts, he didn’t question her motives for invading his apartment but rather strolled into the kitchen, hesitating only a moment before moving towards her, pulling her fingers from her mouth and running them under cool water in the sink.
“I’m buying you hot pads for Christmas.”
He continued massaging her fingers under the faucet, “hi.”
Finally letting her go, he looked her up and down while she wore a pair of his warm socks and long sleeved t-shirt, hair sprinkled with flour, “so, what brought on the Betty Crocker invasion?”
“I just wanted some damned cookies. My oven broke, mom doesn’t have power, burned my finger, I’m tired, cranky, hungry from lack of aforementioned cookie and I want to throw everything out your window.”
Reaching around her and fingering a large chuck of dough, he popped it in his mouth, “so, what you’re saying is you need to go sit down while I bake things.”
Intake of air, exhale of giant sigh later, she leaned back on the counter, scooping her own dollop of raw dough, licking it slowly, “I have the recipes in my head so you can’t make what I want but you can help, if you’d like.”
“If I help, do I get to eat?”
“As many as you want.” Seeing a light at the end of the tunnel, she gave him a smile, “I had plans for five different kinds of cookies but I’m thinking my ambitions run higher than my abilities.”
It took until he had nearly sliced the end of his finger off while chopping pecans for her to ask, putting down her measuring cup and taking the knife away, “what are you doing here, anyways? I thought you were with the guys all day? Secret surveillance, sketchy sources, soaking wet back alleys and skulking monsters …”
Chuckling, “it was going so well then you threw in monsters and negated the beauty of the entire alliteration.”
“Yeah, I know … that’s the kind of day it’s been … add a cup and a half of flour, please.”
Mulder returned to the original question as he carried out orders, “Langley’s got a cold and Byers wouldn’t let him go out in the rain so we called it off. Frohike sent him to bed with a double dose of Nyquil. When Byers mentioned formatting hard drives, I ran like hell and never looked back. I was coming here to grab a few things then I was going to interrupt your afternoon.”
Adding pecans to the brown sugar filling, she bumped his thigh with her hip, the height difference killing her at times, before handing him a large spoon to stir his concoction, “you might change your mind about hard drive formatting when you reach your 200th stir.”
“Shit. I don’t own a mixer.” Looking at her, “can’t I just go to the store and buy you cookies?”
Three hours later, it was incredibly dark and foreboding out, lightning flashing, thunder rumbling, curtains open so they could watch the torrential monsoon in progress. Settled on the couch, cookies were piled high on the table before them, glasses of cold milk standing tall, blanket spread out across folded legs, Mulder having changed into sweats and thick socks and long sleeves as well. Holding out a Russian Tea cake to him, “thanks for all the help today.”
As he bit down, eyes closing in delight and powdered sugar puffing all around, “you’re welcome.” Another bite finished it off and he reached for his milk, “and I have a confession to make.”
Shaking his head with a smile, “Langley wasn’t sick and there wasn’t any hard drive formatting.”
Peanut butter cookie bitten, she cocked her head, looking at him in curious inquiry, “then why did you come home?”
Shifting his hand from its place on her knee to her swollen belly, “I missed you guys.”
“You were going to see us tonight regardless.”
Now she laughed, snuggling closer, settling her head on his shoulder, “we missed you, too.”