Fictober Day 2 | Tagging @today-in-fic @xffictober2022 @xfilesbingo | Wc: 1413
bingo square: animals
Maybe One Day
“You want a puppy with that coffee by any chance?” The waitress, whose name tag reads Lorene, asks them, giving them a sweet smile.
“Excuse me?” Scully stares at her, baffled.
“Is that a kind of pie here in Nebraska?” Mulder asks, exchanging a look with his partner. A smoky, loud laugh spills from Lorena’s lips.
“No, honey,” she says. “I mean actual puppies. My husband wasn’t paying attention one night and now we have a litter of them. Feel free to take one. You look like good people.”
“I, um, I think just coffee for now,” Scully says and Mulder bites his lip, nodding. The waitress just shrugs.
“At least look at them before you leave. They’re cute little fuckers.”
Their case being done and their flight not leaving until the next morning, they have way too much time on their hands, and Mulder knows how much Scully loves dogs. He gives her his own puppy expression, hoping it will work on her. When she sighs and smiles at him, he knows he has her.
“Let’s go look at some puppies,” he says with a grin.
“I told my husband not to name them,” Lorena says, leading them outside to a barn. Scully’s steps become uncertain and Mulder puts a hand on the small of her back, hoping to ease her discomfort.
“It’s just puppies, Scully,” he whispers against her hair so only she can hear him.
“What happened to trust no one?” She asks him with a wink.
“So here they are,” Lorena says, cutting into their moment. As soon as she opens the door to the barn, the six puppies start whining and crying for attention. Their little tails waggle hard and Mulder catches Scully smile at them.
“Sally, their mom is over there. She’s a beagle. We don’t know who the father is. It’s all right, love. You can touch them.” Lorena ushers Scully inside and one of the puppies licks her hand, gently biting into her finger with its pointy teeth.
“Take whichever one you like. I gotta go back to work.” She waves at them before she disappears back inside.
“They really are cute,” Scully says, holding one of the puppies in her arms. Another one is scratching at her leg, wanting to be held, too. She picks it up easily, looking at Mulder with a gentle expression. One of the puppies keeps running back and forth so Mulder scoops it up before it can go another lap. It starts licking his face, restless in his arms.
“Hold on there, buddy.” He scratches the small dog behind its warm, soft ears and it relaxes in his arms. “So which one do you want?” Mulder asks.
“You’re not serious.”
“Why not?”
“They don’t stay puppies forever, Mulder. They need more time than we- a dog is a lot of work.” He caught her wanting to say we. As if adopting one of the puppies would mean it was their dog. Not hers, not his. Theirs. The puppy in his arm is falling asleep against him, the slight weight turning heavier.
“You had Queequeg,” he reminds her.
“And look how that turned out.” He shouldn’t have mentioned Queequeg. Even years later the small dog is a sore spot.
“I named this one Elvis,” Mulder says to distract her. “He looks like a king, don’t you think?” Scully puts the two puppies she’s been holding back with their siblings and stands. She scratches the puppy’s back and it sighs happily.
“He does,” she says softly. “We should go, Mulder. We looked at the puppies and now we should leave.” The sadness in her eyes hits him unexpectedly. Just another thing she can’t have. He presses a kiss to the puppy’s head before he puts it back down.
“Maybe one day,” he says quietly, not wanting Scully to hear. From the look she’s giving him, however, he is certain that she did.
Lately, Mulder has been making himself at home in Scully’s hotel room, no matter where they are or what the case it. At least until she throws him out. Sometimes she forgets and falls asleep before she can ask him to leave and then he tiptoes out of her room, or, just on occasion, he will stay and sleep on the couch, if there is one. Tonight, Scully neither seems tired nor talkative. She’s packing for their trip back home tomorrow.
“What would you have named the puppy?” He asks, still thinking about seeing her with the dogs. “Another name from Moby Dick?”
“Maybe.” Is her short reply. She doesn’t even look at him.
“Have you thought about getting another pet?”
“Mulder,” she says, sounding exasperated. “It’s not a good idea with our work.”
“But you thought about it.”
“Yes,” she admits. “I have.”
He watches her, cracking sunflower seeds between his teeth. Things could be different now. If the IVF had worked last year, they would be parents now. Actual parents. Where would their child be? Would they even have taken the case? Would Scully have stopped working? The possibilities are endless.
In the weeks after, when his hopes were high, he imagined it all. Their baby. Sometimes it was a girl with Scully’s smile and auburn hair, and sometimes it was a boy with hair like his own and her eyes. He imagined their child growing in his fantasies, being smart, being kind, being theirs.
If it had worked, would they have called their child from this hotel room? Tell them goodnight and how much they missed them? Would he and Scully crawl into bed together, sharing not only their work but also their personal lives with each other?
“Are you still thinking about the puppies?” Scully asks him zipping close her suitcase. That probably means that any minute now she will say how tired she is and how they have an early morning, meaning that he should leave her alone and go mope in his own room.
“Among other things,” he says truthfully. “Samantha and I weren’t allowed pets as children.”
“Why not?” Scully sits down on the bed, crossing her legs and watching him.
“My parents didn’t want animals in the house,” he says with a shrug. “My dad used to joke that Sam didn’t need a pet since she had me. Her own Fox.” The memories pour out of him, burying him under an avalanche of grief.
“I’m sorry, Mulder.” He glances over at her and catches her warm smile. “Is that why you have fish?”
“They may not be as cute as puppies, but they don’t need much.”
“I thought you didn’t even like dogs,” Scully says.
But you like them, he thinks.
“I know you loved him, Scully, but Queequeg was…,” he trails off, not wanting to hurt her. To his surprise, she’s smiling.
“I miss having a dog around. Like you said earlier, maybe one day.”
“You heard that, huh?” He wishes he could tell her that he wants her to have a dog. That he wants her to have everything she ever dreamed of. A dog, a house. The kid that lived in his imagination. She should have it all. And he wants it, too. Selfishly, he wants it to be him she comes home to, who she thinks about having children with, or adopting dogs with. It should be him.
“I heard you too, you know,” he says, the cracking sound of the sunflower seed loud in the room.
“What do you mean?”
“You said we. You were going to say that puppies need more time than we can give them.”
“Well, our job is time-consuming. It’s getting late, Mulder, and we have an early morning tomorrow, so-” She doesn’t want to acknowledge it. Whatever is happening between them, whatever has been shifting ever since she’s asked him to be her sperm donor, she’s not quite ready yet. She’s a master at this. He is, too, he thinks. Maybe one day they’ll both get it right at the same time.
“I'll leave,” he says, disappointment slipping into his voice.
She’s quiet and he catches her eyes. He wonders if she’s aware that she’s chewing on her lower lip, obviously trying to make up her mind about something.
“If you want,” she says. “You can stay. Make sure we don’t oversleep tomorrow.”
“The couch is very comfortable,” he says, trying to suppress his grin. “I’d love to stay.”
Forever, he thinks.
Maybe one day they’ll be ready for that.
