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First story I ever posted to ATXC.

She sat on the side of the table nearest the window. He sat to her left. The wine he had brought back from the store was almost too good. It tasted of chocolate and rose petals and of the earth in which the grape grew. It was a tuxedo and a velvet dress next to the ripped jeans and denim shirt meal she had prepared. Open jar. Heat sauce. Boil spaghetti. Actually, it was angel hair. It was the meal's only saving grace. A thin pasta is so much more elegant.

"I just liked the label," he had said when she groaned at the hefty price still stuck to the bottle. He had uncorked it and let it breathe. He had let her breathe, too. No small favor and she thanked him silently for it.

No pawing this evening. No playful grabbing.

No hand in hers. Because of that, she had to clench her fingers together to feel the ring. It was an unfamiliar sensation, the ring. At least on that finger. She had worn Marcus' ring on her index finger all through her senior year. This was different. Platinum and diamonds. Placed on her finger with her own hands alone in the hallway leading to their office.

She drank her wine with her left hand just because. The ring drank in the red of the wine and threw rainbows across the room.

"This is good, Scully."

Her eyes left the ring and she took a sip of the Merlot. She glanced at him over the rim of her glass. He had sauce on his chin. "So, is this. Help me remember the name, will you? I want to buy some for Mom."

Mulder nodded and slurped in another mouthful of pasta. At least she had added ground beef and a few more spices. She hadn't completely failed in the moment.

He wiped the corners of his mouth, failing to reach the sauce on his chin. She reached out with her left hand to swipe at the sauce herself. The diamonds caught the green glint of his eyes.

Scully smiled to herself and sipped her wine. "If you had told me you were going to the store for something other than beer, I would have made more of an effort."

He raised his eyebrows in a question.

"I was expecting -" she started and shook her head. "I wasn't expecting."

"Like I said, I just liked the label," and he sipped at his own wine.

She watched him with fascination as he ate. Fork in pasta. Twist and swirl. Sauce and pasta to lips. In, slurp, chew. Bread to follow. Wine. Glass up, swirl, tilt, sip, swallow, glass down.

"Mulder?"

"Hm." He concentrated on his food.

"When you hear me say 'normal life', is this what you think I mean?"

His eyes shot abruptly to hers. "What -" he said through a mouthful of bread.

She glanced around the room. "All this. This - community. This house. These people. Is this what you think I want?"

He swallowed and fondled the stem of his wineglass. "Isn't it? I mean aside from the unexplained disappearances and all - isn't this the kind of life you want? Nice house. Safe neighborhood. Relatively speaking. Nice couples that invite you over for dolphin-safe tuna casserole?"

She smiled at him. "I don't have a problem with tuna casserole. But I don't swoon over nice neighborhoods and manicured lawns, Mulder. That doesn't make the life. It's what you do with it. And who you share it with."

"You haven't answered my question."

She stared at him and her mind wandered around the subject. "When I was eleven, I wanted to marry Bobby Goldsboro. When I was fifteen, I wanted to marry Rick Springfield. When I was seventeen, I still wanted to marry Rick Springfield, but I wanted to have a torrid affair with Bruce Springsteen."

"Before Born in the USA," he concluded hopefully.

"Born to Run. Before he got buff."

"Great album."

She nodded.

"Who did you want to marry next?"

She stared at him over the rim of her wineglass. "I didn't. I decided that just living with someone would satisfy most of the requirements I'd set for a relationship."

"Okay. So, who'd you want to live with? Harrison Ford? William Hurt?"

"I joined the real world after high school, Mulder. No more fantasies. I started settling for the attainable."

"Settling?"

"Settling in a good way. Boyfriends in college..." She eyed him quickly. "Maybe a professor or two."

"Scully, I'm shocked. You bedded your professors?"

"I didn't say that. But it was within the realm of the attainable. If I had really wanted it."

Mulder chewed on this piece of knowledge and washed it down with some more wine. He drained his glass and poured them more.

"Then I got - distracted - and stopped thinking about it altogether."

"Medical school?"

"Yeah."

"Then the FBI?"

She nodded and smiled at him.

"But you've started thinking about it again. Getting out of the damn car and all that."

She eyed him for a moment and sipped her wine. "Sometimes."

"So, living with him or marrying him?"

"Hmm?"

"What's your pleasure these days, Agent Scully? Are you the marrying kind or the shacking up kind? Torrid affair or a deep, meaningful relationship?"

"Depends, I suppose. Little of both." She glanced down at her finger. He followed her eyes. "But I wouldn't want to split focus anymore. I think Bruce and Rick could happily reside in the same man."

"Happily," he said. "So, this normal life, Scully..."

"There is no such thing, Mulder. It's all subjective. Whatever moment of our lives we're in now - that's normal."

He nodded thoughtfully. "So, all this," he glanced around the room. "This does feel normal to you."

She smiled. "Mm hm. In here, though." She nodded her head toward the outside world. "Not out there. I wouldn't want to live in a place that didn't allow walks after ten o'clock or big, fluffy dogs that knock you down when you come home. And if you want to have a basketball hoop in the driveway, that's between me and you. Not some beady-eyed old fart with a big book of rules."

Mulder smiled at her. "So, then, the $64,000 question is - would you let me have a basketball hoop in the driveway?"

"Only if you'll concede graciously when I kick your ass at HORSE."

"Fair enough."

"I will, you know."

"Get down with your bad self, Scully."

Scully smiled and watched as he stood and cleared the dishes from the table. She sipped more of the wonderful wine and enjoyed the view of Mulder's backside as he bent down for the dish soap.

"What's yours?"

He turned from the sink. "My what?"

"Your normal life, Mulder. Is everything we do - all the work, all this - is this everything you want?"

"It's part of it."

"So, it's not enough."

He thought a moment and turned back to the sink. "If this is all there is, then it's enough."

Scully stared at his back. His shoulders and back heaved in a sigh. "Is it enough for you, Scully?"

He didn't turn around. She willed him to. He didn't. She glanced at the ring again. "If this is all there is - then, yes. It has to be."

Mulder nodded and turned on the water. It ran warm over his hands. Scully slowly stood up from the table. A decision kept her from leaving the room. She took the two steps that brought her before him. She wrapped her arms around his waist from behind and held him tightly, resting her cheek against his back. Mulder's hands went still under the water.

"When it's not enough anymore," she breathed, "you'll tell me."

He glanced down at the ring on her finger. "Will you?"

He felt her nod against his back. She released him and drew away. "I'll dry."

She moved next to him and dried each dish he handed her. Her ring sparkled from the light above them. And the rainbows danced through their fingers.

END