From: fran58@WonderHorse.net   
      
   THIS IS NOT MINE.   
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   title:les mundane for les miserable   
   author: probe   
   disclaimer: don't sue me. I'm just a human bean   
   category: challenge fic? msr?   
   spoilers: just the last episode of the series, maybe   
      
      
   Mulder sprays the windshield again, although the water runs clear --   
   it's about the money, those two dollars in quarters that Scully gave him   
   for the car wash. He wants to make it count -- rinse the car for the   
   full time he has water.   
      
   Mulder's doing his damndest to be conscientious of their finances. Of   
   course, he only becomes conscious of them when Scully pulls out the   
   little book where she keeps track of such things.   
      
   He is angry with himself -- he only needed a dollar fifty and not the   
   whole two dollars -- damn if he wasn't such a spoiled brat in both his   
   youth and his adulthood.   
      
   Money meant nothing because he always had plenty, got in the habit of   
   wearing expensive clothes and travel, eating out, the gym membership. He   
   never had to worry, never even think about it. Student years? It was a   
   joke. When he went to Oxford there was a constant flow of silent checks   
   from his father and his mother, each seemingly unaware that the other   
   was sending any money at all -- neither one communicating anything to   
   their son other than the money. But there was always lots of money.   
      
   The water becomes a trickle and Mulder realizes that the carwash is   
   beeping; time’s up.   
      
   Scully sits on the little brick wall by the trashcans with the book and   
   all their receipts in her hands.   
      
   "Car’s clean" he hollers over to her. She has her hair pulled back into   
   a ponytail and jeans on. The day before, she' was carded when they   
   ordered beer with their pizza.   
      
   Jesus, how much money had that been? Why had he suggested it? He was   
   going to ruin them.   
      
   "What's wrong with you, Mulder?" She squints at him and slams the   
   receipts inside the book, shoves the book in a faded camouflage backpack.   
      
   "How's it looking?" he returns the carwash wand in its holder and starts   
   towards her but she springs from the wall to meet him half way. “Lets   
   go” her eyes squint and scan the street, All clear? and she passes him   
   for the car. It’s her turn to drive. The car seat squeals when she   
   adjusts it forward.   
      
   "No Scully, the money. Are we low?"   
      
   "Were fine, Mulder. Get in."   
      
   He sucks in on one cheek to keep the frustrated huff inside him and he   
   gets in the car beside her.   
      
   “We have enough?”   
      
   "Of course."   
      
   She wipes a mess of water droplets from the seat with her hand. "This   
   car leaks," she presses a finger to the roof and more drops fall into   
   her eyes. "Damn!"   
      
   He reaches to her and wipes under her cheek with the pad of his thumb.   
   Her skin is soft and he lets his hand trail over her lips and down her   
   neck before he pulls away. "How can you stand this?" he whispers to her.   
      
   "Mulder... stop" she says and it is so tender...   
      
   He wonders when it happened -- this strange shift to where he could   
   touch her like this so freely. The way she sometimes speaks to him; a   
   way, that once, he could only imagine. At night he crawls over the   
   sheets that reek with bleach, and the bedspread wafting dust, to her   
   body. He blots out the depressing shabbiness of the room, presses   
   against her. Breathes her in and forgets the sour odors of cigarette and   
   liquor in the carpet and the air. He touches her skin with his own,   
   covers her small breasts with his mouth and grips her hair in his hands   
   when he pushes inside her. They pant into each other's mouths as they   
   kiss, until one brakes away and gasps or shouts.   
      
      
      
   Scully starts the car and pulls slowly back into the street, "I'll be   
   glad when we switch for a different car, maybe we should go without one   
   for a while...that lead...SanFrancisco, right?"   
      
   "No we need to make a stop before San Francisco."   
      
   Scully looks over at him for a second...where? It passes between them as   
   if she has said it aloud.   
      
   "Utah," he answers. "Then San Francisco." Hadn't he mentioned that   
   before? Shit. "We have enough for that?"   
      
   Scully navigates through the narrow side alleyways towards this week's   
   motel home. "We're fine," she repeats.   
      
   But he rubs the side of his index finger to his bottom lip and   
   catalogues all the things they do without: the luxury of their former   
   lives.   
      
   Now, they use cheap shampoo, share a razor. Scully let her hair go back   
   to the dark auburn of their earliest days together and he has a patch on   
   the ass of his Levis. They eat from fruit stands, burrito stands, hotdog   
   carts.   
      
   He lets his head drop back against the vinyl headrest when she stops the   
   car and this time he lets the frustration out in a sigh and closes his   
   eyes. "How can you stand this?" he asks her again.   
      
   "Mulder," her voice was the tender shade again and he opens his eyes to   
   look into hers for the sheer pleasure of meeting their blue gaze. All   
   the years of her dropping her eyes from him and of keeping his own   
   steadily on the job. It is such a relief not to have to pretend anymore   
   -- maybe it will take as long, nearly a decade before it won't make him   
   want to weep when she reaches for him in the night or when she tells him   
   she loves him.   
      
   But the money. He smacks the back of his head against the headrest again.   
      
   "Mulder, you're the only one having a problem with this." She looks   
   thoughtful for a moment. "I miss the same things you do..." And then she   
   is thoroughly the old Scully and she drops her eyes from his, “but I   
   remember what we are working to do...to stop and the things I miss don't   
   matter."   
      
   "No, they don't matter." he says and he ducks his head. "You're right"   
   he mutters again.   
      
   Scully gets out of the car first and digs for the room key in her   
   backpack. He'd taken the key out when he ran back into the room for his   
   seeds. She must have forgotten.   
      
   He would walk up to her and put the key in the door and make some kind   
   of crack about having what she needs or wants and she would laugh,   
   instead of ignore him and he would kiss her, instead of straightening up   
   or looking abashed.   
      
   Inside, he would tell her about the stop in Utah over their dinner of   
   gas station nachos. He would run his finger over the drip of cheese on   
   her sweatshirt and she would grab his finger before he could lick it and   
   put her mouth over it instead. They would talk about trading or selling   
   the car as they lie naked between the rough hotel sheets.   
      
   He realizes, it made their old lives seem...poor.   
      
   Scully drops the backpack. "Mulder?"   
      
   When he gets out of the passenger side he throws the key in the air and   
   catches it on one finger, "Who's your hero, woman?"   
      
   Scully cocks her head a little and lets one side of her mouth curl up.   
   "Oh you are. You are," she teases him.   
      
   And he unlocks the door.   
      
      
      
      
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   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)