TITLE: Milkshakes at Midnight

AUTHOR: Brandon D. Ray

EMAIL ADDRESS: publius@avalon.net

DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT: Do not archive at gossamer; I've already sent it there. Anywhere else is fine, so long as my name stays on it and no money changes hands.

FEEDBACK: Go ahead; knock yourself out.

Ephemeral: *FEEDBACK* publius@avalon.net

SPOILER STATEMENT: Millennium; small ones for "Milagro", "The Unnatural", "How the Ghosts Stole Christmas" and "Fight the Future"

RATING: PG

CONTENT STATEMENT: MSR. ScullyAngst.

CLASSIFICATION: VRA

SUMMARY: Post-ep for "Millennium". Yeah, yeah, everyone's writing Kissfic, and I had to get in on the fun. :)

THANKS: To Brynna, Jen, Sharon & Trixie, for beta duty in the middle of the night. :)

DISCLAIMER: In my dreams...

Milkshakes at Midnight

by Brandon D. Ray

All over the city -- all over the world -- people are celebrating tonight. In taverns and hotel ballrooms, in living rooms and night clubs, in countless other venues, people are celebrating. They're sipping champagne and drinking beer, dancing and singing and cracking jokes. They're sharing warm companionship with their friends and loved ones, and they're mixing together in huge, unruly crowds of happy revelers.

Mulder and I wound up at Denny's.

I'm not quite sure how that happened -- and I was even the one driving for once. Between his injuries and the Tylenol #3 he'd been given at the hospital, my partner was in no shape to drive, and so I took the wheel, intending to drop him at his apartment and then head for home. The next thing I knew, however, I was maneuvering through the parking lot of one of my least favorite family restaurants, and a moment later Mulder was guiding me up to the entrance with his hand at the small of my back, as always.

Except that it wasn't as always, of course. Something very important changed, back there in that hospital waiting room.

At least, I think it changed.

I hope it did.

I think I hope it did.

We haven't spoken since leaving the hospital, of course. Oh, no, not us. That would be too easy. That would be too simple. That would be too --

"I recommend the fries."

I glance up from the menu that I haven't really been reading, to see my partner looking at me from across the table. His own menu sits unopened in front of him, and he has a slight smile on his face.

"The fries?" I ask. Not for lack of anything better to say, of course. After the case we just finished, and most especially after that brief interlude at the hospital, I have plenty of things I could, should and want to say. But for some reason, those two words are all that come out.

Mulder nods solemnly, a twinkle in his eye. "Yeah," he says. "The fries. Be sure to ask for them extra crisp." He glances up past my shoulder, and adds, "Isn't that right, Sylvia?"

I turn far enough to see a young woman standing behind me, looking at Mulder with a friendly smile on her face. He's smiling back – and why am I not surprised to find that Mulder knows the name of a third shift waitress at a random Denny's in Alexandria? Before I can say anything, he adds, "Two orders of fries, Sylvia. Extra crisp. And a couple of chocolate shakes."

I raise an eyebrow at him; only Mulder would order a chocolate milkshake in the middle of winter. He turns his smile from the waitress to me, and says, "It's New Year's Eve, Scully. My family always had milkshakes at midnight -- it was a tradition. Besides, we deserve to cut loose a little, don't you think?" And his smile broadens.

Oh, my. This is not the first time Mulder has ever smiled at me, of course -- not even close. He's smiled at me countless times in the past six years, to the point where I've got all of his various smiles catalogued and indexed in my mind. A smile for every occasion, and an occasion for every smile. But there's something about this particular smile ... something that's making my stomach do flipflops ....

"Scully," he says, very softly, leaning forward and reaching across the table with his good arm to take my hand -- and suddenly I'm terrified. I don't know why, or of what, but I am. And it must show in my face or posture or something, because Mulder immediately releases my hand and pulls back.

Damn it! Why do I do things like that?

I want to be here, I remind myself. I must want to be here --otherwise I would have dropped Mulder at his place and be halfway to Georgetown by now.

And, yes, I also wanted him to kiss me, back in that hospital waiting room. I was standing there watching the seconds count down to midnight, trying not to think about the Biblical prophecy Mark Johnson and the others had been trying to invoke -- and I was suddenly acutely aware that Mulder was looking not at the television, but at me. And there was no doubt in my mind -- none whatsoever -- what he was thinking about.

So I turned towards him, and he leaned down and gave me one of the most profoundly moving and meaningful kisses of my life. And let's not kid yourself, Dana: it wasn't a sexy, arousing kiss, and it didn't last all that long. What made it special and important and, yes, earthshattering, was the person giving it. It was because it was Mulder -- and while by some standards it was pretty tame ... for us, as a first kiss, it was just right. It was perfect.

It was perfect.

So what, exactly, is the problem here? Why am I suddenly so scared?

My thoughts are interrupted by the return of Sylvia, the waitress, with our french fries and chocolate shakes. Suddenly a little junk food seems like a remarkably good idea; I haven't eaten since lunch, other than some vile coffee from the hospital's vending machines while I waited for Mulder to finish up with the doctor. I reach for the ketchup bottle --

Only to find Mulder's hand arriving there at the same moment.

For a few seconds, I don't know what to do. I'm paralyzed; literally paralyzed. Mulder's hand is wrapped around the ketchup bottle, and my own hand is covering his. His skin is warm and slightly rough, like raw silk.

Again -- oh, my.

To my surprise and embarrassment, I realize that I'm blushing. I pull my hand back and gesture awkwardly for him to take the ketchup. Forcing myself to look him in the eye, I find his gaze is clouded with something. Disappointment, I think, and maybe a small amount of hurt. Then he gives a melancholy smile, takes the ketchup and pours far too much of it onto his plate before setting it on the table in front of me.

Why can't I get this right? I consider the matter as I pour a small dollop of ketchup onto my own plate. What the hell is wrong with me? I won't pretend that I've had endless fantasies about Mulder – in fact, for practical reasons, I've tried very hard to segregate him from what Sister Angelica at Annapolis Regina referred to as my "baser urges".

Nevertheless, I've had a subliminal awareness of him as a very attractive man from the day I met him, and in the years we've worked together an emotional bond has formed between us that I've been helpless to prevent -- not that I *want* to prevent it, at least not anymore. There was a time ....

God, I'm babbling. To myself, no less. What I'm trying to get straight in my head is that I've been more or less consciously waiting for Mulder to notice me as a woman ever since we got back from Antarctica. What was it Padgett said, that day we took him to jail? "Agent Scully is already in love." Yep. That would be me. Guilty as charged.

And now, finally, Mulder's gone and done it. He's crossed the line, and there's no way for me to ignore it or pretend he didn't mean it. He isn't drugged up -- well, okay, he is a little, but thirty milligrams of Tylenol #3 just isn't the same as IV Demerol. He wasn't desperate because he thought I was about to leave him. He wasn't even hyped up over some hokey story about a baseball-playing alien.

Nope. None of those things are true. He simply, plainly, unmistakeably, wanted to kiss me. And I wanted him to kiss me. And he did, and I let him, and now here we are at Denny's at 1:45 in the morning eating french fries and chocolate milkshakes, and I'm shaking like a leaf.

"Scully?"

"Hmm?" I refocus my eyes on my partner's face, and see that he's looking at me curiously. The disappointment and hurt I thought I saw in his eyes a few minutes ago seem to be gone -- so thoroughly gone that now I'm not sure they were really there in the first place. Could I have imagined that? I mean, it was just a bottle of ketchup, after all --

"Your fries are getting cold," Mulder announces, as if it were a profound and meaningful observation. "And your shake is starting to melt."

I glance down at the plate, and then back up at him, and I shrug my shoulders slightly. "I guess I'm not really hungry," I say – which is sort of a lie; my stomach has been growling intermittently for hours. On the other hand, it's sort of not a lie, because all this wheel-spinning and self-doubt has got my stomach tied up in knots, as well. Jesus. Why do I do this to myself?

"You look tired," Mulder says, very softly. "Maybe you should go home and get some sleep."

I shrug again, and suddenly I do feel very weary. "Yeah," I say. "That's probably a good idea."

Mulder nods, and without saying anything he downs the rest of his milkshake, slaps some money on the table, and rises to his feet and heads for the door. I slide out of the booth and follow him, catching up just as he gets to the car.

The short drive to his apartment is silent and, speaking for myself at any rate, awkward. I'm suddenly bone-weary, both physically and emotionally. This case ... well, it's been very taxing for me, in a lot of different ways. My belief system has been getting pretty badly knocked around the last month or two, and being assaulted by someone who I *know* was dead hasn't helped matters at all.

I also will admit that I got a little swept up in the religious implications surrounding the Millennium. Logically, I know it's ridiculous -- not only is this *not* the start of the new Millennium, but the Bible also reminds us that no man will know the day or hour of the Second Coming. But that didn't stop me from feeling a tremor of fear as that silver ball drifted slowly towards the ground a couple of hours ago. Maybe this was really going to be it, I remember thinking. Maybe ....

But it wasn't, and then Mulder was kissing me, and God I was happy. For maybe two minutes, from the moment he started leaning towards me, until we got outside and the cold night air started to invade the comfy little bubble we were in, I was happy. For the first time since... well, since that late night batting practice Mulder lured me out to last spring. And before that was Christmas morning after the visit to the haunted house, and before that --

But there's no point in going on. The fact of the matter is that almost every happy memory I can conjure for the past six years involves Mulder. And those two minutes while he was kissing me and immediately after -- they were the best of all. There's no logic to my subsequent reaction, and no reason for me to be afraid.

None.

We arrive at Mulder's apartment building, and I pull to a stop across the street from the front door. We sit quietly for a minute, neither of us looking at the other. I want him to kiss me again, and I think he wants to do it. But given the way I've acted since we left the hospital, I doubt if it's going to happen. I'm sure he must have decided that I regret it, or didn't want it, or some stupid thing.

"Scully?"

I turn in my seat to face him -- and oh, God. He's smiling at me again. The way he did in the restaurant. This is it, then. He *is* going to do it again -- he's going to kiss me. Unless, of course, I manage to screw it up with my damned -- whatever-the-hell-it-is. Which is just not going to happen. I'm not going to *let* it happen.

And now he's leaning in towards me, very slowly, giving me plenty of time to tell him "no". Which is very sweet of him, but it's also just exactly the wrong thing to do, because it's giving me too much time to *think*. But I'm determined to let this happen -- and it occurs to me that I can speed the process up a bit, and I lean towards him, helping to close the gap. His eyes are closed, and I find my own eyelids drifting shut, just as they did in the hospital. Something warm and soft and moist touches my lips. It's him ....

It's him ....

"Scully?"

I open my eyes, and find Mulder looking at me from about two inches away. I have no idea how long that lasted; no idea at all. My pulse is racing, and my lips are tingling. I feel like I'm fourteen and have just been kissed for the very first time. Mulder looks ... happy isn't quite the right word, but it'll do. He also looks unbelievably beautiful just at this moment -- damned near good enough to eat, in fact. Which just isn't on the agenda for the time being, I tell myself firmly. Certainly not for tonight. I think we need to take this whole thing nice and easy.

"Are you okay?" he asks.

I smile, and nod slightly -- and then I reach up and cup the back of his head with my hand, and I kiss him again.

Ohhhh. This is nice. This is really, really nice. This time I feel the very tip of Mulder's tongue paint the outline of my lips, and then withdraw -- and then I do the same for him, answering his unspoken questions: Yes, I do want this. No, this is not just a New Year's kiss. Yes, we will get to that point, eventually. You just need to give me time.

Finally, we break apart again -- and for some reason I'm not at all surprised to see that there are tears in his eyes. Well, I'm feeling a little sniffly, too, so I guess we're even.

We sit together in the car for a few more minutes, my hand resting on his shoulder, just looking at each other. We're exploring each other's faces, I realize, trying to discover what's changed in the past two hours. Speaking for myself -- nothing, really. Mulder is the same man he was when he first leaned in to kiss me at the hospital-- and thank God for that. That's the man I've come to know and ...love. Yes, love. Padgett was right about that much, at any rate.

Finally, Mulder smiles again, and plants a quick, playful kiss on the tip of my nose -- sort of like a cherry on top of an ice cream sundae. Then he says, "I guess I'd better let you go."

I nod reluctantly. I can see in the back of his eyes that he's wishing I'd come upstairs with him, but I'm just not ready for that. And after another moment, he nods. "Okay, then." He starts to turn away, then pauses, and looks back at me. "Would you ... would you be interested in coming over to watch the Rose Bowl tomorrow? With me?"

I have absolutely no interest in football, and Mulder is well aware of that. But I wouldn't miss this game for the world, so I just smile, and say, "Sure. I'd love to. Want me to bring anything? Maybe some ice cream, so we could make some more milkshakes?"

Mulder's own smile broadens, and he lets out his breath in something very close to a sigh of relief. "Just yourself," he says, very, very softly. Before I can respond he's out of the car and walking briskly across the street towards his apartment building. Without saying goodbye, and without looking back.

And I sit waiting in the car until I see the light come on in his window, before I start the engine and pull away from the curb, making a mental note to stop off for some chocolate ice cream before I come back over tomorrow afternoon.

Fini