Once Upon a Time

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Once Upon a Time . . . .

By Mary Kleinsmith (Buc252@aol.com)

Spoilers: None for X-Files, but the story makes specific reference to the movie Ever After. I think, however, that you should be able to enjoy it without having seen it.

Summary: MulderAngst and his thinking just a little too much

Rating: PG

Classification: MS UST

Archive: Yes

Disclaimer: Mulder, Scully, and everything related to them belong to Chris Carter and 10-13, with magic added by David and Gillian. I'm only borrowing them.

Once Upon a Time . . . .

By Mary Kleinsmith

I knew it was a mistake to let Scully pick the movie, Mulder thought on the drive to work. It had been bad enough that she'd chosen a typical "chick flick". At least with typical women's movies, the theme stuck to romance and seduction. He had foolishly expected - or maybe hoped would be more accurate - that this one would be the same. No such luck.

Thank God the room had been dark. They didn't typically watch videos with the lights off, Scully claiming something about it being a strain on your eyes, but for this one time, she had agreed, and he was grateful. Darkness hid a myriad of sins, and this night it hid even more. He would have died if Scully had seen him flinch as the Baroness's words were spoken. . . .

"How can anybody love a pebble in their shoe?"

The girl had asked her for nothing but her love, and the response from her step-mother was cruel. Cruel, yet holding a certain familiarity. Not that anybody had ever spoke those words to him, but the feeling had certainly been there. From his parents after Samantha's disappearance, from those who were interested in where his talents could take them yet not in the man himself, and from Diana when she'd finally gotten everything from him she could. They'd practically bled him dry, yet held no real affection for him after all.

When the movie was over, despite its happy ending, he felt alone. So alone. Not physically, since Scully sat right beside him on the couch, but alone in his soul. This feeling actually struck him often, but not usually quite this deeply. Even now, the next morning, he felt somehow insulated from everybody in the world. Was that was he was? A pebble in someone's shoe? A nuisance to Scully and AD Skinner and the rest of the bureau?

He wondered how long Scully would be willing to put up with that nuisance - she'd already done it for longer than anybody could expect. How long before she stopped along the road and discarded this particular stone in her petite pumps.

Scully was already in the X-Files office when he stepped through the doorway. She was beautiful, as usual, and her eyes shone with warmth. "What's the matter, Mulder? Did I keep you up too late with that movie which you so colloquially referred to as a 'chick flick'? Sure didn't keep you from being mesmerized by it, though." She laughed, and he forced a slight smile that didn't quite cover the emotions which had been boiling since last night. If Scully noticed, though, she didn't let on.

The day dragged on mercilessly, and he felt like he was being buried under a mountain of depression and paperwork. Yet he found he didn't want the workday to end since it meant leaving Scully's side. The derision he felt from others was diminished when she was with him, and her friendship was a buffer against his loneliness.

"How about dinner?" he suggested, praying she'd accept. "I'll even give you your choice of restaurants."

"I get to pick twice in two days? What's the world coming to?" When Mulder didn't respond with one of his typical witty remarks, she opened her mouth as if to speak, but the words never left her lips.

Something was wrong with Mulder, of that she no longer had any doubt. He'd been atypically introspective the evening before, and now . . . well, asking her to join him for dinner wasn't so unusual, and she could even believe he'd let her choose, but not rising to the bait in one of their notorious sparring matches just wasn't like him.

"Since you're letting me pick, how about I pick you up? It only seems fair, if I get to decide where we're going, that I should also have to pay for the gas, right?" She smiled into his eyes, which seemed to almost always be sad, until he nodded with a grin of his own.

"You don't have to tell me where we're going, Scully," he said as he led her from the office, his mood seeming a little better. "But could you just tell me whether I need a tie?"

"No tie will be necessary, Mulder," Scully responded as she unlocked her car. "Just jeans and a Henley will do nicely. I'll be by at 7:00."

"Yes, ma'am," he smiled as he watched her put the car into gear and then pull away.

*************************

"Damn it!" Scully muttered under her breath. Why the hell did people think it was okay to park those stupid car carriers right in the middle of the street? The resulting traffic jam had delayed her by over forty-five minutes; surely Mulder would think her in an accident by now! And she was still a good twenty minutes from his apartment.

She didn't think about the empty pocket where her cellular phone always resided, nor sense it's ringing atop her kitchen counter only moments after her home phone had ceased.

Mulder hung up the receiver, sighing with loss more than frustration. She wasn't coming. After shedding the Henley, his eyes scanned the dim apartment, deciding how to spend his solitary evening, and finally falling on the plastic case on the television. It had been a two-day rental, and wasn't due back at Blockbuster until the morning. He wasn't sure what hint of masochism caused him to rise and put it in the VCR.

Allowing the apartment to darken until only the illumination from the TV remained, he fast-forwarded past the opening title credits and the names of Drew Barrymore and Angelica Huston. At each scene, he remembered how Scully had reacted the night before to that section of the drama, thinking fondly how she'd smiled while Danielle had quoted from Utopia and laughing aloud when she hoisted the prince on her shoulders and carried him away from the attacking gypsies.

Before he knew it, he'd reached that particular scene - the one which had struck his heart with it's sense of truth - as Danielle and her step-mother faced each other.

"How can anybody love a pebble in their shoe?"

He lost track of how many times he rewound and repeated that phrase, it only occurring to him that he was ruining the tape and bound to break it eventually. He didn't care. It was easy enough to pay for it if he did.

Scully stepped into the empty elevator in Mulder's building, embarrassed that it was a quarter past eight when they were supposed to meet at seven. She heard the sound coming from the apartment and noted that no light came from under his door as she prepared to knock. Before her hand could connect with the door, though, she couldn't help but hear . . .

"How can anybody love a pebble in their shoe?"

What the hell was he doing in there? She wondered, trying the knob and finding the door unlocked. He didn't seem to notice when the light from the hallway spilled into the room. She found him curled in the corner of the sofa, his eyes glazed and his hand, holding the remote, pointed towards the television set.

"Mulder, what are you doing?" she asked with as soft a voice as she could manage. He silently continued to replay that line over and over. "Mulder, look at me!"

The hazel eyes finally turned to focus on her, following her as she sat down beside him. "I thought we were going to dinner. Why aren't you dressed?"

"Figured you weren't coming," Mulder said simply, pushing himself further upright. The face he turned to her was the same he always wore, yet in the eyes there was a sense of such forlorn that her heart cringed.

"I got delayed on the trip over," she explained. "Is it too late?" She meant it to ask if it was too late for dinner, but she realized his thoughts were not on dinner. Her mind recalled the last few minutes of her arrival.

"How can anybody love a pebble in their shoe?"

"Oh, Mulder . . ." She saw, somehow, where his thoughts had gone. Perhaps, where they'd been during his self-imposed silence all day. He was drawing a similarity that she didn't like.

Taking his hand in her own, she used the other to turn his chin toward her. "Mulder, you are not a pebble. Not in anybody's shoe and most certainly not in mine. Neither are you a fly in the ointment." That comment got her a faint smile. "But don't go getting a swelled head and think you're the pearl in an oyster either!" The smile grew, and he unconsciously moved closer to her.

"I'm not exactly wanted most places either," Mulder finally spoke in a self-deprecating tone.

"But where it counts, you are. You forget, Mulder. Those people who were really important to her - those she loved and who loved her in return - didn't see her as such. And, most importantly of all, her soul mate didn't." She blushed, then drew him to her, embracing him in gentle arms while he sighed heavily for a few moments. She knew he needed the comfort and the knowledge that he was cared for.

They stayed in their pose for a few minutes before he finally raised his head. His eyes sparkled again, and the loneliness seemed dispelled, at least temporarily. "So what say we take that tape back and get something more fun for after dinner?" she suggested, pulling him by the hand off the couch.

"Do I get to pick the movie this time?" Mulder asked with a glint in his eyes.

"Well, since I'm picking the restaurant, that seems fair." She hesitated, watching as he pulled the Henley back on. "But no 'mutant' movies and nothing where the name start with 'Porky's' or 'National Lampoon', you got it, partner?"

"At your command, mademoiselle," Mulder said, bowing like a courtier as he led her from the apartment.