Note:  This story originally appeared in August 1995 on the
alt.tv.x-files.creative newsgroup.  It was Elizabeth's debut fan fiction.

			*** BREAKFAST ***

DISCLAIMER:  "The X-Files" and its characters are the creations and 
property of Chris Carter, Ten Thirteen Productions and Fox 
Broadcasting.  I am, of course, using them without permission.  No 
copyright infringement is intended.  All other concepts or ideas herein 
are mine.


BREAKFAST (Irresistible--The Next Morning)
by
Elizabeth Rowandale <bstrbabs@gmail.com>
Copyright (c) 1995


     "No, thanks, not yet," Fox Mulder said, raising his hand to stop 
the pretty blonde waitress from grabbing the order pad from her belt.  
"I'll wait for my partner."
     The young woman smiled at him in acknowledgment, a sweet, dimpled 
smile that accentuated her attractiveness.  On another morning he might 
have taken her look as a mild flirtation and smiled back.  He might 
even have made small talk, tried to keep her at his table an extra 
minute or so, just to pump up his ego.  But this morning he only saw 
her smile as a comfortable kindness--and that was all he wanted it to 
be.  He turned away as she disappeared with a whirl of her pink cotton 
skirt.
     He gazed out across the scarcely populated parking lot of the 
motel, to the tree line on the far side of the highway and the endless 
grey sky beyond.
     According to his watch it was only a few minutes past nine, but it 
felt more like late afternoon than morning.  He was having trouble 
snapping himself into his daytime professional mode.  He hadn't slept 
enough last night.
     Scully had insisted on giving her statement as soon as was 
possible, insisted on not accepting Agent Bochs' offer to let it wait 
until morning.  Mulder had followed her lead.
     By the time they had left the regional office, a blue grey light 
had been shining on the horizon.  The eerie stillness of the pre-dawn 
hours, when the world is uncertain of where it stands, and the gentle 
songs of the first waking birds mingle with the creaking of the 
lingering night's crickets and cicadas.
     They had traveled to the motel in silence.  Separate, yet keenly 
aware of one and other's presence.  Scully had left her seat belt 
off--the only time Mulder had known her to do so--and leaned half 
against the passenger door, arms folded tight across her chest, gaze 
locked firmly on the road ahead of them.  She had looked so fragile and 
wounded sitting there, nestled for warmth in the thick colorless FBI 
blanket.  Her overcoat had been taken as evidence.
     He had stolen unseen glances at her throughout the drive, watching 
the tight set line of her jaw in the passing flashes of light from the 
street lamps, resisting the overwhelming urge to reach over and smooth 
the errant strands of hair from her cheek.
     He had walked her to her motel room door.  He had wanted to say 
something to her then--something more than a cursory "goodnight".
     Scully, pale and trembling, but with a tight rein on her 
composure, had said to him plainly, "Goodnight, Mulder."  She'd slipped 
the key into the faintly tarnished lock.  He had touched her elbow ever 
so lightly, managed to ask, "You sure you're all right, Scully?  You 
don't need anything?"
     She had shaken her head, skillfully avoiding his searching gaze.  
"I'm fine, Mulder. I just need sleep."  Then she had hesitated--only 
for half a moment, perhaps no more than a second by his watch--but in 
that instant he should have spoken.  He had let it slip by.
     Scully had pushed forward into her darkened motel room, and he had 
been left with nothing to say but, "Goodnight, Scully.  I'll see you in 
the morning."
     She had nodded politely, hardly glancing up at him, and closed the 
door.
     *Call me if you need me, Scully*.  Unspoken.
     And now he sat alone in the narrow booth of the motel diner, 
thinking about Scully, and about Pfaster, and about the trial Scully 
would inevitably have to endure--and he waited for her to join him for 
breakfast.
     The faint ding of the bell above the diner door caused him to 
glance up.
     Scully stepped through the doorway.  She scanned the tables as she 
caught the door behind her to soften the slam.  She met Mulder's gaze 
and lifted her eyebrow slightly to acknowledge the connection, then she 
looked away as she made her way to his table.
     Mulder pushed to his feet as she approached.  He smiled fondly.  
"Good morning, Scully," he said, careful not to sound overly cheerful.
     Scully glanced up at him, barely making eye contact and offered a 
small, perfunctory smile.  "Morning."
     She was dressed in a dark slacks suit, her light weight trench 
coat hung open at her sides.  Her hair and make-up were as neat and 
polished as ever.  But even the usual dressings and adornments could 
not hide the evidence of her previous night's ordeal.  The abrasion on 
her chin had healed a bit and been smoothed over with make-up.  But the 
skin around the wound on her forehead had darkened into a deep bruise 
that emphasized the dark red at its center.  Her eyes looked tired.  He 
wondered how long she had slept.
     Mulder narrowed his eyes in open concern.  "How's your head?"  He 
reached out and drew his fingers across the tender flesh.  His touch 
hardly applied more pressure than the air itself.  But Scully flinched 
and pulled away from him.  He was mildly hurt by her reaction; he told 
himself it was just the soreness of her wound.
     "It's fine, Mulder," she said, almost impatiently, her gaze still 
eluding his.  "Did you order yet?" she asked, glancing at the table.
     She smoothed her coat beneath her as she slid into place on the 
thinly padded bench.
     "No," he said, hardly hearing his own response.
     Scully pulled the small laminated menu from the napkin holder and 
dropped it on the table before her.
     After a beat Mulder took his place across from her.
     The pretty blonde waitress glanced toward their table again.  When 
she saw Scully, she moved in their direction.
     Mulder kept his gaze on Scully for a moment, then looked down at 
his own copy of the menu.
     The waitress stepped up to their table.  "Ready to order?" she 
asked.
     Scully kept her gaze on the menu, didn't react to the woman's 
presence.
     Mulder, who had intended to let Scully order first, filled in the 
silence.  "Uh...yeah.  I'll have, um...a plate of French toast and the 
fruit salad."
     "Anything to drink with that?"
     "Yeah, I'll have a cup of tea.  Black."
     The waitress smiled again--that same sweet smile--and turned to 
Scully.  "And what can I get you, ma'am?"
     Scully pulled in a deep breath through her nose, drawing herself 
forcibly into a communicative state.  She hardly looked up from the 
menu as she spoke.  "I'll just have a black coffee and a small orange 
juice."
     The waitress nodded, finished jotting down the order, then strode 
off toward the kitchen.  When the woman was out of earshot, Mulder 
said, "You should eat something, Scully.  You haven't eaten in over 16 
hours."
     Scully shook her head, brushing off his words.  She dropped the 
menu back into the napkin holder--it clinked softly.  "I'm not hungry," 
she said.
     He wanted to say more but fell silent.
     Scully gazed out the window at the deepening grey of the sky.  Her 
pale eyes reflected the soft light.  She propped her forearms on the 
edge of the table, clasped her hands, intertwining her fingers.
     Mulder watched her unobtrusively.  He tried to discern just what 
thoughts might be circling behind those distant eyes.  There had been 
holes in the story she had given last night--subtle inconsistencies 
that Bochs and his men had not picked up on.  But Mulder had sensed 
them in her tone and manner.  She had handled Pfaster like a true 
professional, no question.  She had called to hand all her past 
training.  She had nearly escaped him, despite his obviously superior 
strength.  She had gotten hold of his gun, had swung around to fire at 
him--and he had knocked the weapon from her grasp?  With a full arm 
swing she would have seen coming...and she hadn't fired?  No.  Not the 
Scully he knew.  She had been scared last night, true.  More so than he 
had ever known her to be.  But she had been functioning sharply and 
rationally despite her fear.  There were elements to the story she was 
omitting, and for now he had chosen to let her do so.  He knew better 
than to press her.  She would only reinforce her defenses.  And beyond 
that, he trusted her professional judgment implicitly.
     He had known this case had been upsetting her since a few hours 
after their arrival in Minnesota.  But he had had no idea how much 
she'd been hurting until that moment last night.  For those few brief 
breaths she had let him inside--when she had clung to him so fiercely, 
pressing her face against his chest and crying without reserve--the 
fear and pain he had felt in her had far surpassed any reaction he 
might have expected from her ordeal.  Last night Mulder had been given 
a glimpse of a far more complex woman than the one he knew and worked 
with each day.  He didn't fully understand what Scully had been through 
this week--if something had happened on this case that he had missed, 
if something else was going on in her life she had chosen not to share 
with him, if this week's events had tied in with something in her 
past--something that still plagued her nights as his own past plagued 
his.  *Did Scully have nightmares?*  The thought of Scully waking up in 
her apartment, solitary and terrified, affected Mulder more deeply than 
he would have thought.  When their waitress appeared beside him with 
their orders, he found himself grateful for the mundane distraction.
     Scully, too, roused herself from her quiet detachment as the 
waitress spread the orders before them.  Scully ignored the orange 
juice and reached for her coffee, blowing across it, sipping it 
gingerly.
     When they were alone again, Mulder took his first bite of toast 
and was pleased to find the quality of the food exceeded that of the 
ambiance.  He glanced down at the ample quantity of food on his plate, 
then across at Scully.  He pushed the plate an inch or two in her 
direction.  "You should try a bite, Scully, it's pretty good," he said.
     Scully closed her eyes for half a beat, angled her chin ever so 
slightly as if in defiance.  "I said I'm not hungry, Mulder."
     Two or three friendly, teasing remarks crossed his mind but 
something stopped him from speaking.  He returned his attention to his 
plate.
     Scully took another sip of her coffee, then asked plainly, "What 
time is our flight?"
     "10:15," Mulder said.  He reached for his tea.
     Scully frowned and checked her watch.  "It's almost 9:30.  We'd 
better get moving."
     Mulder shrugged.  "We'll make it."
     They fell silent again.
     Mulder jumped when Scully asked, "How did you match the print?  
What was Pfaster's prior arrest record?"
     Mulder swallowed his sip of tea and said, "He was arrested day 
before yesterday for assaulting a woman in the parking lot of a local 
college.  Turns out he was probably right in the station house the 
night Bochs called us in."
     Scully nodded.  "I know, I saw him," she said matter-of-factly.
     Mulder paused mid-bite, his eyes widening.  "You did?"
     She nodded again.
     "Then why did you ask?"
     She shrugged.  "I just wondered what else came up in his file."
     A long moment passed in silence, then Scully looked at her watch 
again.  She set down her coffee mug.  "Come on, Mulder, we have to get 
going."
     He gestured toward his plate.  "Hang in a minute, Scully, I'm 
still eating."
     "Well, bring it with you.  I don't want to miss our flight."
     Mulder caught her gaze a moment, his mind toying with the possible 
finish to her sentence--*because I want to be as far away from here as 
possible as soon as possible*.
     Mulder tossed a slice of French toast onto the saucer beside 
Scully's coffee mug.  "Here, help me out, Scully, we'll get out of here 
sooner."
     Scully didn't acknowledge his offer, but neither did she push it 
away.
     "So," Mulder began, vigorously chewing a bite of his fruit salad, 
"I believe the next priority waiting for us on my desk is the Winslow 
disappearance."
     Scully lifted an incredulous eyebrow.  "Mulder you *have* to be 
joking.  That woman is insane.  She thinks her daughter was eaten by 
her rose garden.  You can't give any credence to that.  It's a standard 
missing person's case, Mulder.  You saw the file on the father.  10 to 
1 he took the girl to protest the custody decision.  I thought you gave 
that case back to the local office already, anyway."
     He shook his head, washed down a bite of toast with his tea.  
"Scully, you can't discount this off hand.  Did you look at the 
statistics?  The number of children from that neighborhood who have 
been reported missing in the past year?  It far exceeds the expected 
statistics for a neighborhood in that low a crime bracket.  Those 
people go for long walks alone in the middle of the night and don't 
expect to be robbed, Scully.  And *ten* of those missing children's 
case files mentioned a recent fixation on the part of the child with 
some kind of plant, either indoor or outdoor.  Now don't you think that 
at least merits further investigation?"
     Scully's look was answer enough, but she spoke anyway.  "Mulder.  
You can't honestly tell me you're going to ask Skinner to condone 
giving Bureau time and money to investigating the possibility of a 
plague of demonic plants.  And if you pursue this without approval, 
he'll just call you on it.  You can't expect something like that to 
slide across his desk unnoticed."  Scully reached out and picked up the 
piece of toast from her saucer, took a bite as she spoke.  The action 
was not lost on Mulder, but he deliberately showed no sign of having 
noticed her action.  "Besides," she continued, "we have the Martin 
trial tomorrow and our testimonies are vital.  The trial's in Maryland, 
so we can't afford to be in New York tiptoeing through the Tulips From 
Hell."
     Mulder half-suppressed a grin.  He raised his eyebrows to Scully, 
feigning a look of innocent sincerity as he took a hefty swallow of his 
tea.
     Scully's look was comfortably accepting of his antics, but he 
caught not even a hint of a grin.
     Scully took another bite of the toast, then dropped it onto her 
saucer with an air of finality.  "Okay, Mulder, come on.  We have to 
get moving."
     Mulder nodded, cramming a last bite of fruit salad into his mouth. 
"Okay, Scully, I'm coming."
     Scully pushed to her feet, hovered beside the table.
     Mulder grabbed the pink order slip from the table top and reached 
for his wallet.  "We pay at the front counter," he said absently.
     A small child cried out on the far side of the diner.  Mulder 
looked up.  Over Scully's shoulder, he watched a man, presumably the 
child's father, entertaining his little girl by transforming a cloth 
napkin into a vociferous hand puppet.  Mulder smiled at the comical 
picture.  He reached for Scully's hand to catch her attention, but with 
his eyes on the child, he caught hold of Scully's wrist.
     Dana sucked in a sharp breath through clenched teeth and jerked 
back from Mulder.
     The puppet was instantly forgotten.  Mulder frowned at Scully, 
confused and startled by her action.  "What is it, Scully?" he asked.  
But even as he spoke he saw the answer to his question.  Scully was 
gently cradling the wrist he had grasped.  The cruel bonds she had 
endured throughout the previous night had left her wrists badly bruised 
and raw.
     "Oh, God, Scully, I'm sorry," Mulder said hurriedly.
     Scully's chest rose and fell visibly with her quickened breath.  
She didn't lift her gaze to meet his, only cocked an eyebrow and shook 
her head to brush off his apology.
     An awkward silence hovered between them.  Mulder was keenly aware 
of how close she was standing.  He could smell her subtle perfume.  
Just as he had last night.  Strange, how much more vivid a person's 
presence could be felt when they moved only a few inches closer...
     He drew a shallow breath.  "Scully, I--"
     Scully drew herself up straighter, breaking the spell and 
silencing Mulder's words.  She held out her hand.  "Why don't you give 
me the car keys.  I'll warm up the car and drive over to pick you up; 
you wait in line at the counter."
     Mulder hesitated a moment, unwilling to shift the conversation so 
completely.  He shifted his wallet to his free hand and reached into 
his pocket.  He dropped the keys into Scully's open hand.
     She closed her fingers around the keys, but didn't move to go.  
Scully kept her eyes on her hand.  Mulder gazed steadily down at her, 
studying her intently, searching for the smallest facial gesture.  He 
focused on her dark lashes against her creamy white skin.  Her freckles 
showed vividly in the slowly emerging sunlight.
     "Thanks," Dana said softly.  She lifted her eyes, and almost 
self-consciously met his gaze.
     Mulder felt his pulse quicken.  He struggled intensely to read 
behind her words, to grasp something concrete in her infuriatingly 
subtle gestures.  He was certain he could feel it--she was thanking him 
for far more than the proffered car keys.  She was cracking the iron 
door again, just for a second, allowing him merely a glimpse.  So much 
lay behind that door that he wanted to see.  There was so much he 
wanted to say to her.  *What happened, Scully?  Did he hurt you?  What 
scared you?  What's hurt you before?  Can I help?*
     Mulder cleared his throat, shifted his weight from one leg to the 
other.  "No problem, Scully," he said.
     She offered him a polite smile without a trace of good humor and 
lowered her gaze.  "I'm all packed, are you?" she asked.
     He nodded.  "Yeah, my bags are right inside my room door, we can 
just drive by and grab them."
     "Okay."
     Scully's gaze had settled firmly on the lapel of Mulder's trench 
coat.  Mulder sensed an increased tension in her carriage.  Had 
something drawn her attention?  Or was the trench coat merely an item 
to look at while the tension had come from within her.  He was about to 
speak when Scully took a step back from him.
     "Okay," she said again.  She gestured toward the growing line at 
the diner's front counter.  "Go on, get in line.  We're going to miss 
our flight.  I'll meet you out front."  She turned and started toward 
the door.
     "All right, Scully," Mulder called after her, responding more on 
reflex than conscious thought.
     Scully pushed the heavy door, once again sounding the little bell. 
Mulder looked down at his trench coat, lifted the lapel into his line 
of view.  He saw nothing.  Then just as he was letting go, his eye 
caught a small smudge on the slick material.  A barely visible 
stain--black on black.  It took him only a beat to realize--Scully's 
mascara...
     Mulder looked up again.  He watched Scully's familiar figure 
through the diner's front wall of windows.  She paced briskly toward 
their car, never glancing behind her, her trench coat lifting in the 
wind.
     Mulder stood for a long minute, watching his partner slip the key 
into the door lock of the rental car, watching her sink into the 
cushioned driver's seat.  Then he turned and took his place in the line 
before the cash register.

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