This is fun. I'm actually enjoying hitting these
baseballs. There's a sense of accomplishment each time the ball and bat connect. Of course, what I'm REALLY enjoying is having Mulder's arms around me, his lips next to my ear, his jokes and encouragement.

He's been in a rare mood all weekend, beginning when
he stole my ice cream cone this morning. For once, the guy is HAPPY! He wants us to play! No angst, no
conspiracies, just fun. Far be it from me to refuse.

Finally, the kid who's been shagging balls for us
announces it's time for him to go home, and we call it a night.

"Okay, Scully, we played baseball. Outside. In the
warm spring air. Now are you willing to take back some of those things you said about me not being able to enjoy life?" Mulder demands as he we stroll off the field. He's "forgotten" to remove his arm from around my shoulders and I haven't bothered to remind him that I no longer need a batting coach.

"I don't know, Mulder. You still owe me an ice cream
cone."

"You drive a hard bargain, woman."

We reach an ice cream stand and he informs me, "If
I'm getting ice cream, it's going to be REAL ice
cream. Not that non-fat tofu crap you were eating this morning."

"You were eating it, too."

He ignores that, and turns to the teen-ager at the
ice cream stand. "One king-size chocolate and vanilla
swirly cone. What do you want, Scully?"

"That's okay, I'll just eat off of yours."

"You sure? I'll be happy to buy you one of your own."

"I'm sure," I say. He pays the kid, takes his cone
and licks a big lump of it into his mouth. Then he
hands me the cone and I do the same.

"How come you didn't want your own cone?" he asks. We
can't really eat ice cream with his arm around me, so
now we're holding hands, instead. I like holding hands with Mulder. He has great hands. Great arms, too, which is why I'm always touching them. Of course, since the hands in between us are occupied, we have to reach all the way across each other's bodies every time we trade off the cone.

"It's a girl thing, Mulder. You wouldn't understand."

"A GIRL thing?" he demands with a chuckle. "That's
the first time I've ever heard you admit to being a
GIRL, Scully. What is this "girl thing" that prompts
you to eat my ice cream instead of your own, pray
tell?"

"This way, the calories don't count."

"Huh?"

"All girls secretly believe that food has calories
only if it actually belongs to them. Calories consumed in food that belongs to a guy don't count, even if the girl eats half the food. See, I can eat half your ice cream cone, but you still get all the calories."

"Well, this explains why you're always eating my
french fries and stuff.  Does it also apply to why
you'll hardly ever consent to let me buy you a drink,
but you'll drink half my beer if I order one?"

"Exactly. That's the alcohol exemption."

"Scully, I'm amazed. Please explain further."

"Well, the alcohol exemption works pretty much the
same way as the empty calorie theory. Just like we
can't get fat from eating food that doesn't' belong to
us, a girl can't get drunk from drinking a guy's
drink."

"Does your mother know you believe these sorts of
things?"

"Mom's the one who TAUGHT them to me, Mulder! See,
except for an occasional glass of wine, Mom doesn't
drink. But if Ahab was having a drink, she'd take a
sip of it. I asked her about it one time, and she said it's unladylike for a woman to actually order or
request any alcoholic beverage other than wine, but
that if her husband orders a beer or martini or
something, she can drink out of his and it's okay." As soon as these words or out of my mouth I freeze. I
realize I've just blithely put the relationship
between Mulder and me on the same level as my parents' 35-years-and-four-kids marriage. I mean sure, Mulder and I are close, but not quite THAT close. Luckily, he either didn't notice my faux pas or is being kind enough to ignore it.

"So, when you take a bite out of my bacon
cheeseburger, I get my cholesterol level raised, but
you don't?"

"Exactly, Mulder. I knew you'd catch on fast!"

"So, what happens if I eat some of your tofu crap,
like I did this morning?"

"Well, I get all the health benefits."

"What if I was eating something healthy?"

"How likely is THAT, Mulder?"

All during our banter, we've been passing the ice
cream cone back and forth. When it's my turn, I lick
it upward in long, smooth strokes. When he gets it, he sort of tamps it down with his tongue and gulps some in. By now, we've reached the cone. I take tiny
nibbles out of it, while he takes larger bites. We're
also nearing Mulder's apartment building; it's less
than a block away.

We reach the outside of his building just as we
finish the cone and I stand on the lowest step, which
puts me almost on eye-level with him. I remove my hand from his, to place both of them on his shoulders. "You're a messy eater, Mulder," I say, studying his face in the dim light of the street lamp on the corner. He's got a tiny smear of ice cream clinging to that luscious lower lip of his.

"Why don't you wipe it off? I do that for you, when
you get barbecue sauce smeared all over your face," he answers. 

I don't bother mentioning that all I had on my chin
was one little drop of sauce. Instead, I murmur, "Oh,
I think I can do better than that." Then, before I
lose my nerve, I lean forward and lick the ice cream
off. Then, since I'm already right THERE, so to speak, I go ahead and press my lips to his.

For a moment, Mulder doesn't respond. I think I've
shocked him. I know I've shocked myself. I'm about to
pull away in embarrassment when Mulder finally snaps
to it. He slides one of his hands up to the nape of my neck and plants the other one firmly on my butt. Then he sort of growls into my mouth and begins kissing me back. Before my addled brain can even process what's happening, he's got his tongue inside my mouth. I sweep mine into his and savor the mixed taste of ice cream and sunflower seeds. Not the sort of flavor combination that I'd normally recommend, but on him it's delicious!

We kiss for a long time - heck, you don't wait nearly
six years for something then rush through it! - but
we're finally forced to come up for air. My eyes slid
shut while we were kissing and I'm almost afraid to
open them. Before I can make a decision, his mouth is
on me again. Not my mouth this time. My neck. Oh my
Lord!  Does he know how sensitive I am right there? I
can feel his lips and -- ooooh! -- his tongue!  -- on
my skin. Without conscious thought I whimper.

Mulder stops and pulls back. Now I know I'm afraid to
open my eyes. I don't know which would be worse - if
he apologizes again, like he did during our
almost-kiss last summer, or if he's all smug-looking.
But I've always been the kind to confront my fears
head on, so I force my eyes open.

Mulder looks neither apologetic nor smug. He's
smiling, but it's soft. His eyes are filled with a mix of tenderness and desire, just a tiny hint of
uncertainty lurking in their hazel depths.

Apparently he likes what he sees reflected back on my
own face, because he pulls me even closer and bends
his mouth to my neck again. I stop him with a hand to
his head and a murmured protest.

"Nuh-uh, Mulder. My turn now. We're partners,
remember?" I touch my mouth to the juncture of his
neck and shoulder and begin to suck. Even as a I savor the taste of him, a tiny part of my mind begins to wonder how in the HELL we're going to explain matching love bites on our necks to Skinner on Monday? I wonder if our boss would buy "We got abducted by alien vampires'? Maybe, considering it's us.

I stop nibbling on his neck after a minute. Not
because I don't enjoy it, but because I want us to
kiss again.

"Mulder," I murmur.

"Dana, do you want to," before he can finish the
sentence, we're interrupted by a squeal of tires and
voices shouting our names. The Lone Gunmen. Of all the times, guys! We're kind of busy here!

"Hey, G-people," we hear as the door pops open.
Langley's the one who gets out. I thank God for this
tiny silver lining on the dark cloud of their
interruption. Langley's probably the smartest of the
three gunmen and he's definitely the most paranoid.
But he's also the one of them least likely to pick up
on vibes pertaining to social interaction between
other people. If Byers saw us with Mulder's hand on my butt, he'd back away in chivalrous embarrassment. If Frohike saw us like this, he'd probably burst into
tears. Langley is just oblivious to it.

"Hey, Mulder, Scully, come on, get in the van," he
says. "Something big is going down and you guys
definitely want to be in on the ground floor of it."

Mulder glances at me with a look of amused
resignation on his face. Short of staging a scene
right on the sidewalk, there's no way out of hopping
into the van with the guys. I can also tell that
Mulder is torn. I'm well aware that part of him really wants to tell the guys to bug off so we can get back to our smooching. But I also know that another part of him is intrigued by whatever is happening.

"Where have you guys BEEN?" Frohike demands as we
scoot into the van. Byers is at the wheel, and Langly
gets in the front beside him. I'm in the middle of the backseat, between Mulder and Frohike. "We tried your office number, your cell phones and your home phones. We sent e-mail, to no avail."

"Well, I suppose it could have been worse," Mulder
murmurs in my ear. "It COULD have been another one of
those damned bees!" Out loud he says, "We were at the
park."

"It could have been worse than the bees or the
gunmen," I whisper back to my partner. "It could have
been Skinner!"

"The park?" Byers asks in confusion, as if Mulder had
just casually announced we'd been on the moon.

"It could have been worse than the gunmen, the bees
or Skinner," Mulder murmurs, continuing our game of
can-you-top-this. "It could have been Bill Junior!"

At that, I concede the game to him and dissolve in a
fit of giggles.

All three gunmen turn around to stare at me in
amazement. "Scully, did you just GIGGLE?" Byers
demands.

"She's been doing that lately," Mulder answers. "It
may be our next X-File."