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He calls her two days later. The number that lights up on her screen reads ‘Unknown’, and she almost doesn’t pick up until she notices the call is from Martha’s Vineyard, MA. She’s hopeful it’s him and answers it.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Scully. It’s me.”
She instantly recognizes him by his voice alone, a voice she’s been thinking about an embarrassing amount since they met in that bookshop. “You’re calling me,” she responds dumbly, excited he took the time instead of just texting.
“You gave me your phone number.”
“Right. Hi.”
“Hi,” he repeats sweetly. “I hope I’m not ruining my reputation as a real ladykiller by ignoring the three day waiting period to call a girl.”
“I wasn’t aware you had such a reputation.”
“I’d like to think so.”
They sit in silence for a brief moment, before Scully hums into the phone. “So…”
“So,” Mulder responds. He waits another beat before continuing. “Can I take you out this Saturday?”
Her face heats up. “You really cut to the chase, huh?”
“Why waste my time?”
“I was planning on studying at the library this Saturday,” she lies.
“That sounds boring. You should reschedule that.”
“I don’t know if I can, Mulder. I have a lot of work to get done.”
“What’s one night off from studying? Besides, you already agreed to hang out with me the other day. It will be fun! Take a break from school for one night. Forget about Einstein and become friends with Mulder.”
Scully repeats the word “friends” over in her head and thinks about the grey area that is hanging out. She had assumed he was trying to ask her out on a date, which she was nervous about for multiple reasons. But maybe he really just wants to hang out and be friends, Scully thinks.
“Scully?” His soft call brings her back to the conversation at hand.
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“I can hang out Saturday night. But not too late, I really do need to be up early Sunday to study.”
Mulder grins from ear to ear and somehow Scully can feel it through the phone. “I’ll pick you up at 6. Text me your address.”
“You have a car on campus?”
“Yeah.”
“Isn’t it more convenient to metro?”
“I like to get outside DC most weekends. Thus, the car.”
“Oh, okay,” she says. “Mulder?”
“Yes?”
“Are you planning on taking me outside DC this Saturday?”
Mulder laughs and it’s hypnotic. Scully finds herself being pulled into him even over the phone. “Don’t worry about it, Scully. I’ll see you Saturday at 6. Dress casually.”
She’s about to question him further when she hears a click and the call goes dead.
He’s hung up on her but she isn’t angry. Instead, she feels herself becoming increasingly intrigued by him. His antics were bizarre and he was so much more forward than anyone she’d ever met. It felt strange to be so drawn to someone she barely knew. But she was inherently curious and Mulder seemed like the perfect mystery to be solved.
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When he arrives outside her apartment Saturday evening, she’s already there waiting for him on the stoop. She’s wearing a dark floral patterned dress, black tights, maroon doc martens and an oversized levi’s jean jacket.
“Hi,” he says, unashamedly checking her out.
“Hi.”
“You look nice.”
“Thank you. So do you,” she says, and means it, despite the fact that he’s wearing yet another bizarre sweater. This time it’s heather grey with a large green alien head smack dab in the middle. He’s paired it with jeans and timberlands, so at least from the waste down he’s dressed semi-normally. “Where do you find these sweaters?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, they’re…they’re kinda…”
“Kinda what?”
“Never mind.” She meets him on the curb where he’s leaning against a car door.
“Here, let me.” Mulder opens the passenger door and she stares at him awkwardly until stepping in, caught off guard by the gesture. She still can’t figure out if this is a date or not.
Mulder slides into the driver’s seat and pulls out of his botched parallel parking job while she takes the time to study the inside of the car. Unopened bags of sunflower seeds, blankets, and a backpack are thrown aimlessly on the backseat. The floor is covered in large maps, papers, and manila files.
“I tidied up for you,” Mulder says, waving his hand in the direction of the clean space by her feat. With one hand he grabs some sunflower seeds from the bag sitting atop the center console. “Want one?” he offers while biting into one.
She shakes her head and tries not to stare while he meticulously takes apart the shell with his teeth. “Where are we going?”
Mulder smiles at her, shell sandwiched between his teeth. “Ever heard of Cumberland, Maryland?”
“Sure,” she replies calmly. After a beat she turns her head towards him, her eyes wide and eyebrows raised. “You’re taking me all the way to Cumberland?”
“It’s only two hours away,” he tries to reason.
“Mulder, when I told you I have to wake up early tomorrow I wasn’t joking!”
Out of the corner of his eye he can tell she’s actually a little ticked off. “Sorry, Scully. I promise you’ll have a fun night, and I’ll try my best to get you back by midnight.”
Scully watches the way his eyes glaze straight ahead at the road and how his knuckles appear to whiten from his grip on the steering wheel, and she knows he’s being sincere. “It’s alright,” she huffs, “but if I screw up on my physiology exam there will be hell to pay.”
He catches a glimpse of a smile and knows they’re okay. “I thought you were studying physics?”
“I am, technically, but I’m pre-med, so I have to take the required science courses to get into med-school.”
“Dr. Scully, MD. Has a nice ring to it.” He starts working on another sunflower seed. “But I’ve gotta admit, a nurses outfit is a lot hotter than a doctor’s.” Mulder turns his head and waggles his eyebrows. “Though I could be persuaded.”
Scully rolls her eyes and violently chucks a few sunflower seeds at his head. “Eyes on the road, creep!”
Mulder’s laughter fills the car as he turns his eyes back to the road. It’s not long before Scully’s laughter joins in.
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The next two hours go quickly, filled with more of Mulder’s teasing and Scully’s eye rolling. They talk mostly about her; where she grew up, what it was like moving around all the time, sailing trips with her father, horrible freshman roommate stories. Mulder chimes in every now and again with a story of his own, but most of them are from just the past few years at college. The times Scully does try and ask a question about his childhood, he always seems to brush it off, not giving too much detail. Scully gets the feeling it’s better to just leave it alone, and she doesn’t mind telling Mulder all her childhood stories of fights with Bill and pranks with Missy and Charlie, not when he’s so eager to listen.
She’s finishing telling him about the time in her first week of freshman year when she sat in the wrong lecture hall, was too embarrassed to leave, and ended up spending an hour learning about the art of silent films, when he interrupts her. “We’re here,” he says, pulling off the road onto an expanse of grass.
She looks out the window and tries to make out her surroundings illuminated by the car’s headlights. “Where exactly is here?”
“Do you want exact coordinates?”
“If I didn’t know any better I’d say you’d just driven us into the middle of nowhere.”
“The middle of Cumberland, Maryland, sure.” He smiles and turns off the engine. Scully watches as he gets out of the car and proceeds to open the back door, grabbing a blanket, a forest green jacket and matching backpack. “Come on,” he says excitedly.
Timidly she steps out of the car and into the pitch black. The moon is bright enough that she can make out his figure as he reaches into his backpack and fishes around. He pulls out two flashlights and hands one to her. Without question, she begins to follow him along the grass away from the car. They walk for awhile until the car is only a faint speck of black behind them.
“This is it!”
“This is what, Mulder?”
He ignores her and lays the blanket down on the grass. He plops the backpack down on top, followed by himself. “Hungry, Scully? I’ve got sandwiches, chips, pretzels,” he says as he pulls out each item and places them in the center of the blanket. He looks back up at her. “Why are you just standing there? Come sit down!”
With her brows furrowed she sits down next to him, placing her flashlight at her side.
Mulder hands her a sandwich, then takes his flashlight and shines it under his chin. “Enjoy!” He grins and the shadows on his face are so bizarre Scully can’t help but smirk.
They sit in silence eating for awhile until Scully remembers how totally odd it is that she has been given no explanation of what sort of date, or non-date, this is.
“Why did you take me here, Mulder?”
“Doesn’t everyone drive out to grasslands at night? Last I heard that was the big trend. There’s not some new fad no one’s telling me about, is there?”
“Mulder, I’m being serious. Why did we drive two hours to sit in a field at 8pm?”
“Because,” he starts, rummaging through his backpack again, “of this.” He places a file in her lap and points to a fuzzy black and white photo with two triangle shaped objects appearing in the corners. “Two months ago in this exact spot, a couple of teenagers driving home from a football game noticed something odd in the sky. Two giant, bright disks, flying right above their heads.”
“So two teenagers saw some airplanes in the night sky, so what?”
“Not airplanes, Scully. I checked and there were no aircrafts scheduled to be in this location at that time.”
“So, they were probably satellites, then.”
Mulder starts shaking his head. “These guys reported large bright objects, Scully. Since when have you ever seen a satellite dish that looked larger than a dot?”
“Well, then, what do you think they saw?” Even in the dark Scully can see the wide grin appear on Mulder’s face. “Oh no, please don’t tell me…”
“UFOs, Scully.”
“Oh Jesus.”
“I’m serious! Nothing else explains it!”
“Nothing else? Nothing else, really? How about the fact that you’re going off the word of a couple of teenagers who for all you know were stoned out of their minds!”
“There’s been multiple sightings reported, Scully. I don’t base things off of just one single account.”
“Oh, of course not, that would be outrageous!”
“Do I detect a hint of sarcasm in your voice?”
“Just a hint.”
Mulder smiles, but flips through the pages in the file with determination to show her more photos. “Look here, Scully. Three other cases, all of people reporting similar sightings in this spot. How do you begin to explain that?”
“I don’t know, Mulder, but my first guess would not be extraterrestrial. Hell, I don’t even think my last guess would be extraterrestrial!”
“Well it doesn’t matter what you believe now. Once you see it for yourself, we’ll be on the same page. Aren’t you just the least bit curious as to what these people saw?”
Scully sighs. Despite how ridiculous it is, she’s intrigued by Mulder’s wild theory. “Okay. I hate to admit it but you have my attention. I’d like to figure out whatever these things are.”
“That’s what I thought. I knew you were nerdy, miss pre-med.”
Scully slaps his thigh with the manila file. “Watch it, alien boy.”
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Hours pass and there’s still no sign of anything unusual. Mulder and Scully lie side to side on the blanket, their arms brushing up against one another. The same intimacy Scully felt in the bookshop she feels now. It’s like Mulder’s touch is electric.
Thinking about it sends a chill down her spine. “You cold?” Mulder asks, turning his head away from the stars and towards her.
“No, I’m fine.”
“You sure? I can go grab another blanket from the car.”
“And miss all the inactivity? Don’t you dare.”
“Hey, it’ll happen, just you wait.”
“We’ve been waiting an awful long time. Though I am enjoying the stargazing.”
“Do you know anything about constellations, Scully?”
“Besides Ursa Minor and Ursa Major, not really, no. Why, do you?”
“No, but I could make something up,” he jokes and begins rattling on about the tale of two polar opposites who met one fine fall day. “And see, those stars make the outline of the skeptic’s combat boots.”
“Yeah, I see. And those stars there are the ugly pattern on the believer’s sweater.”
“Cute,” he says, and nudges her shoulder.
Just as she’s about to add more to his story, something bright catches her eye. Immediately, Mulder is on his feet, eyes gazing up at the large flying lights zooming around.
“Scully! Are you seeing this?”
She stands up besides him and looks in awe at the lights dancing above her. “What are they?” she whispers, afraid her voice will frighten the lights into disappearance.
“UFOs! Real. Life. UFOs. Harbored by real life aliens!”
Scully laughs at the ridiculousness of it all: Mulder’s beliefs, the fact that she let him drag her out here so late at night, the fact that there really are unidentified flying objects right above her head. Whether it’s a date or not, this is the most fun she’s had in a long time.
Within seconds, the lights fade away, and they’re left with nothing but stars and silence.
“That was incredible,” he says after a few minutes.
“Truly,” she replies, nearly breathless.
He smiles down at her, overjoyed she has been there to witness this moment with him. “So, do you believe?”
“That this was extraterrestrial? No.”
“Awww,” he whines.
She starts laughing. He tucks a piece of loose hair out of her eyes and behind her ear. Her face flushes red and she prays his eyes haven’t adjusted well enough to see it.
“You really believe,” she begins, picking up her flashlight and trying to ignore his gesture, “that what we saw was extraterrestrial?”
Mulder begins gathering the rest of their things. “Why shouldn’t I? Look at the photos I showed you. How do you explain that?”
“Mulder, what makes you so sure those photos are even authentic?”
“Oh come on, Scully! You saw exactly what I saw in the sky just now. What do you think they were?”
“Just because I can’t explain it, doesn’t mean I’m gonna believe they were UFOs.”
“Unidentified. Flying. Objects.” He annunciates each word with care, as though hearing it spoken more clearly will make her believe. “I think that fits the description pretty well.” He looks at her, his face completely serious. “Tell me I’m crazy,” he challenges.
Without missing a beat she replies, “Mulder, you’re crazy.”
He lets out a small, breathy laugh, prompting her to smile. Their back-and-forth leads them back to his car. “I’m in awe of your ability to deny what you’ve just seen,” he says settling into the driver’s seat.
“I’m in awe of your ability to believe even the most ludicrous of ideas. Really, Mulder, it’s actually impressive.”
They exchange smiles. “Even though I didn’t convince you, did you at least have fun?” The look on his face reminds her of a puppy. She enjoys the fact that despite everything he’s still a little insecure.
“Yes, Mulder, believe it or not I had a nice time tonight,” she says leaning her head back against the headrest.
“I always believe,” he responds coolly.
It’s the last thing she hears before she dozes off.
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She wakes up to the feeling of tapping on her shoulder. She turns to find Mulder grinning at her, his face not far from hers. “I think you were drooling,” he jokes.
She starts to blush and apologizes. “Don’t worry. We’re back, though,” he gestures outside to her apartment.
“Thanks,” she says, still half asleep. “I had a really fun time.”
“Glad to hear it. I hope I didn’t keep you out too late.”
She glances at her watch which reads 1:30 AM. “No, it’s fine. You’re right this was a lot better than my original plans.”
He walks her to her front door and waits until her keys are in. Nervously she glances up at him. “Night, Mulder.”
He leans down slowly and presses his lips to her cheek. “Night, Scully.”
And just like that he’s gone, back into his car, driving down the District streets. She touches her cheek, burning hot against her cold hand. The question of whether this was a date or not creeps up again. That’s a thought for another night, she thinks, and retreats into her apartment.