Mulder Laughing
Author: probe
Disclaimer: don't sue me please. I'm just a human bean.
Category: V/MSR/
Spoilers: None

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He always began his morning run with a sweep of the hotel. Three
laps usually did the trick. No one watching, no sedans with men in
suits or police gathering in a nearby street, no orderly hotel guest
exodus to isolate the room he and Scully shared.

When he had convinced himself that they were safe, he branched out
from his careful observance of the hotel to see a little of the
latest city or town. It was something he had never done before,
when they had visited many of the same places as federal agents. He
always had the case in his mind, usually some killer's consciousness
gnawing at the fringes of his own.

It was truly ironic that his life underground, constantly evading
police APBs and earnest telecasts of America's Most Wanted had
brought him a peace of mind that his former life could never have
provided.

It was a humid spring here in Galveston; he was already sweating
hard and he had hardly gone five miles. He'd gone through the 
historic district, headed for the shoreline. Scully thought the 
ocean here wasn't particularly inviting. There was a lot of seaweed 
and the water was murky with silt, the waves low, but he preferred the 
gently brown waves. He jogged in place at a stoplight and smiled to 
himself. The night before he had sat on one of the rock jetties with
Scully and listened to her tell him about the different coasts that she 
had lived on and let her describe the merits and drawbacks of the 
ocean's behavior at each one. Her seriousness had always brought out 
the smart-ass in him.

"In Hawaii the waves are huge -- relentless sounding at night."

"Your father was stationed in Hawaii?"

She had frowned at him. She didn't like it when he asked questions
that she felt were unimportant to the conversation. "Briefly. In
San Francisco the waves have this same unrelenting quality in the
day. It is because the water is very deep off of San Francisco."

"Define unrelenting."

She'd frowned again and he'd laughed.

He used to struggle so much to treat her as a professional. It had
been hard as his feelings for her had changed from strictly
professional to very personal. Now they were entirely personal and
he teased her all the time, took bites of her food, put ice cubes
down her back, kissed her when he got barbeque sauce or ice cream on
his face.

It was something he had missed about his sister -- the little ways
that it is funny to annoy the people you love. She always gave back
as good as Samantha did -- two ice cubes to his one, smeared the ice
cream from her lips onto his nose. Classic younger sister
retaliation.

"Nice try," she'd say and he would laugh some more.

It was easier to be together and hiding than it had been to be
together and working.

Mulder jogged down Seawall Blvd. It was early but already there
were families staking out parking spaces near the beaches, children
in puffy floatation gear and mother's holding plastic buckets of
toys, draped in towels, dad's carrying the coolers, lawn chairs
dangling from their arms.

Lately, Scully had been pestering him about his eating habits and
his sleeping habits, that he needed to eat healthier and watch less
television at night. He remembered those things bothered him in his
past relationships but he liked them now. It made him feel like
part of a couple, like he and Scully were their own little family
and he was responsible to her for his health. He had wanted her to
belong to him for so long that it couldn't help but make him happy
to see the ways that she felt he belonged to her.

Mulder came back across Seawall Blvd and into the run down
neighborhoods that bordered it.

The hotel they were staying at was in an area called The Strand.
He'd picked it because a brochure claimed it was haunted by a former
Madame when the hotel had been a brothel. He had no intention of
investigating the rumors. He just thought it was cool.

Scully liked the shady street and the coffee shops and art galleries
nearby. 

Maybe they would stick around a while. They didn't have anywhere
else to be. Not yet.

Mulder glanced at his watch. Scully nagged him to take his pulse at
the end of his runs but he managed to laugh her off or threaten her
with his sweaty t-shirt.

He could see the hotel in the distance and as he approached he
spotted her sitting on the hood of the car with coffee cup in one
hand, the paper billowed over her lap like a voluminous paper
skirt. He stopped his jog to walk the last little bit and he put
his fingers against his neck to pacify her but he wasn't really
counting his pulse.

"You aren't fooling anyone," she said looking up.

He laughed, "Get off my back, woman!" He pulled his soaked t-shirt
from his head.

"Don't even think about it." She gestured to the shirt with her
mug.

Mulder pulled her into an embrace and the coffee sloshed onto the
paper.

"Mulder!" It was the voice she used when she wasn't really annoyed
but felt that she should be.

"We have a pretty good life, don't we, baby?"

"Baby?" She pulled herself from his sweaty chest and bunched the
newspaper into a semi-soggy bundle. She frowned at him and he
laughed again.

"Shower?" He pulled her to their room's door.

"SureÖBaby," she answered rolling her eyes at him.

He scooped her up and carried her through the doorway and her coffee
spilled behind them in a milky brown trail. 

The End