Title: Christmas Grays
Author: MissAnnThropic
E-Mail: miss_annthropic@yahoo.com
Summary: Mulder helps Scully decorate for Christmas.
Disclaimer: I own nasing! Really, I don't. All you see here (that you recognize, anyway) is the creation of someone else. I take no credit.



"Mulder... Mulder, don't just stand there... give me a hand."

Mulder looked up at his partner, balanced precariously on the armrest of her couch, which had been dragged across the room to serve as a step-stool so that petite, tiny little Agent Dana Scully could reach the hooks high upon her walls. He couldn't help the amused smirk that came to his face at the sight. She was decorating for Christmas, and somehow she'd gotten Mulder to help her.

Well... he remembered how she'd gotten him to do it... she asked, and he obliged. It wasn't like he was doing anything around the holidays, anyway. His family was all but nonexistent, all the friends he had considered a computer hack Yuletide fun, and in the split second she'd asked him to give her a hand with the decorations, he'd remembered seeing the hooks embedded high upon the wall in her apartment. He had NO idea how Scully thought she could manage to reach those things, but it had jump started that over protectiveness in him enough to consent to the holiday chore.

Actually, he was rather enjoying himself. He'd never done much around Christmas during childhood. He could remember, like a movie he'd seen once when he was five and nearly forgot, vague memories of actual Christmases at the Mulder household, but they'd disappeared when his sister had. It had depressed him for a while... until he built defenses against it, and after that he refused to let Christmas be anything special for him.

And yet, here he was in Dana Scully's apartment decking the halls and having a good time of it. She'd called him over early Saturday morning, knowing exactly when he would be coming in from his run. She enticed him over with the promise of cookies (though she knew he would come anyway), and he'd thrown on some jeans, and black T shirt, tennis shoes, and was out the door.

Scully had greeted him at the door more warmly than he'd remembered being received in a long time. Scully was in an unusually good mood. He would have to make a note of hanging around Scully near Christmas (sans the monsters and mutants) more often in the future.

She had a small three foot live Christmas tree on the table behind her couch, bare of decorations, though the boxes full of them sat on the floor nearby. The lights were on, a pine-scented candle burned on the mantel, and Christmas music was playing softly in the background. As far as Mulder's twisted little world was concerned, this may well be his equivalent of walking into a Norman Rockwell painting.

Scully had led him to the kitchen, where the sugar cookies were still cooling on the sheets, two coffee mugs full of icing sitting nearby in preparation.

Scully had apologized halfheartedly that the 'promised cookies' weren't finished yet. Mulder, undeterred by their lack of icing, swiped one of the sheet and bit into it with gusto anyway.

Scully seemed pleased at his approval of her Christmas snack, then asked rather shyly and kindly if he would help her ice them. It was kind of amazing... she'd been so confident when she'd asked him to help decorate the apartment, but when she asked him to help her with the cookies she seemed to think she was asking too much. As if that was not in the bargain when he came over.

So for most of the morning, they'd been seated at Scully's kitchen table, slopping icing on sugar cookies. Both were uncharacteristically open and loose... talking about personal memories of Christmas and joking around. At one point, Scully had even taken the brush she was using to smear icing on the cookies and ran it up Mulder's arm.

Mulder eyed her playfully, "Kinky, Scully?" then brought up his arm to lick the icing from it. Mulder had remembered that he'd not even had time to enjoy the rich taste of the thick icing, for Scully this time had an innuendo to throw back at him. After he'd licked the icing from his arm Scully had glared mischievously at him and commented, "It's not kinky unless the other person licks it off, Mulder."

Mulder had been stunned. Scully really did get in a looser, more playful mood around Christmas. That might be something to keep in mind.

After the cookies were done, Scully drug Mulder into the living room, where she asked him to help her move the couch toward the wall with minimal scratching of her wood floor. Mulder did so, then stepped back as Scully reached into a box, pulled out a string of lighted garlin, then crawled up on to the couch and balanced precariously as she fought to tame the wild string of garlin.

The point where it left them now.

"Mulder... can you hold that up so there's not so much tension on it up here?"

Mulder reached forward, grabbing the garlin and lifting it... just enough to give Scully some slack. Scully sighed, "Thanks."

Mulder looked up, frowning. He didn't like seeing Scully standing so unsteadily on the very back of the couch. She sank, corrected, and bobbed the entire time, never seeming to think much of it, but it was about to drive Mulder crazy. He was even about to bring up the dreaded subject of height with Scully, but chose to side-step the touchy topic with, "Hey, Scully... why don't you let me climb up there?"

Scully paused to look down at him. Regardless of his implying, she knew what he meant clearly. She glowered faintly, "I'm not up for your short jokes, Mulder... just feed me some more garlin up here."

Mulder huffed and did so, watching with a grimace as Scully walked along the back of the couch to the next hook.

"I hope I wasn't keeping you from any Christmas activities of your own, Mulder."

Mulder looked up at her, a little taken aback. She seemed to sense the tense silence and glanced down at her partner. "What?" she asked him curiously when she saw his face.

Mulder shook his head slowly, "You're kidding, right?"

"No... why... should I be?"

Mulder chuckled, shrugging, "Nah... you weren't interfering with any plans... I was just going to watch 'This Island Earth' and call for some Chinese take-out."

Scully stopped a moment to look at him. "This close to Christmas? Are YOU serious?"

Mulder nodded, "Hey... I thought you knew all about my Christmas traditions."

Scully turned back to her work, "I did... I guess I just never thought they were entirely true, and that is a horrible movie, Mulder, I don't have the first clue why you would ever willingly watch it more than once." Mulder laughed as Scully returned her attention to her work.

Scully stretched to reach the last hook, grunting under her breath as she managed to loop the garlin over the hook. She stepped down on to the cushion of the couch, looking up at her handiwork, "There... see, I did it."

Mulder smiled, "Yeah... guess you were right."

Scully looked at him, "You should admit that more often," then turned to the tree. "Come on, G-man... all we have left is this tree, then we can kick back and relax."

Mulder stopped in his step a moment. When had Scully mentioned kicking back and relaxing? He'd not mentally prepared for THAT.

Scully rummaged through one of the remaining boxes, looking up at him standing vacantly in front of the misplaced couch, "Well, come on, Mulder... lend a hand."

Mulder stepped closer, moving to stand before one of the boxes.

Scully strung up the lights on the small tree while Mulder dug around the box, mostly amazed at all the NORMAL Christmas stuff his little partner actually owned.

Scully's voice interrupted his musing, "Mulder?"

"Yeah."

"You see a box of globes in there?"

Mulder pulled out a box of shiny balls, each topped with a hook. He nodded, "Yeah... right here."

Scully nodded, considered the tree a moment, then asked, "Could you hand me a gold one?"

Mulder reached into the box, withdrawing a shiny gold ball and handing it to her.

Scully took it, studying the tree a hard moment before strategically placing the ball on a branch. Mulder was almost to the point of laughing as he stood watching her. Who would have imagined that the scientific Dana Katherine Scully could be so precise and engrossed in Christmas decorating?

Scully's voice interrupted his thoughts once more, "Now... could you hand me a green ball?"

Mulder froze a moment, looking down at the box full of balls in his hands. There were gold ones, blue ones, and white ones... all of which he saw... the rest were an identical shade of gray. He had a fifty/fifty chance of picking the right color she had asked for. Green... green... which one did he think would be green? If Scully adhered to her normal habit of organizing, he'd suspect that the greens would be next to the blues... all earth hues, right?

Mulder grabbed one of the gray balls from beside the blues and handed it to his partner.

Scully took the ball from Mulder without looking, moving toward the tree with it until she actually noticed the object in her hand. She stopped, looking a long moment in confusion at the red ball in her hand.

Scully stood back, attention pulled away from the tree and riveting her attention instead on the shiny candy apple red ball in her hand. Red... she'd clearly and specifically asked for green. Though logic told her it was an innocent mistake, something deeper in her said it wasn't. The doctor and the friend in her was screaming an alarm that something was off.

Scully looked over at Mulder, holding up the ball to him in her hand faintly, "This is red."

Mulder's eyes seemed to flash subdued panic a moment, then he dropped his head down and his eyes focused on the box of orbs in his hands. His fingers seemed to hover over the box a moment, then he moved to the side opposite the one from which he'd just pulled the red ball. He THIS TIME successfully withdrew a green ball and looked up to hand it to her.

Scully took it, a preoccupied look on her face. She thanked him softly, setting down the red ball, but instead of turning back to the tree she looked a long moment at Mulder... pensive.

Mulder fidgeted under her thoughtful stare.

Scully set down the green ball, stepping beside Mulder and asking gently, "Mulder... could you come with me a moment?"

Mulder, a little apprehensive of what Scully might be up to now that she had gotten so serious and silent, stalled a moment. He carefully set down the box of ornaments, then moved after Scully as she led him into the kitchen.

Scully went to the counter, grabbing the plate of freshly iced cookies. She turned back to Mulder, stepping toward him and setting the plate down on the kitchen table nearby.

Mulder watched curiously, wondering what any of this could have to do with the Christmas cookies.

Scully stepped back a pace from the plate, then looked up at Mulder.

Mulder, thoroughly confused, could only watch her.

Scully pointed to the plate, then said, "Pick out a red cookie."

Mulder swallowed. Pick out a RED one? Taking a deep breath, he dropped his eyes down to the plate in front of him. All the cookies were iced in a uniform gray hue... he'd just known from experience that the festive colors were meant to be red and green when he and Scully had been frosting them earlier that morning.

Mulder stepped toward the plate. Each cookie looked the same as the next... its neighbor just as gray as it was.

Mulder stood a moment, his choice weighing heavy on his mind. He reached down to the plate, hesitated a moment, then picked up one cookie at random.

Mulder didn't look up at Scully for a while, and when he did it was to meekly offer her the snack.

Scully took it, still eying him critically, then asked, "Do it again."

Mulder went completely still. For a long time he just looked at her, then he turned his eyes back to the plate. What were the odds of guessing correctly TWICE?

Scully stepped up to him, not breaking the silence for a while. She reached forward the replace the red cookie Mulder had given her on the plate, then looked up at her partner.

Scully studied Mulder's face a moment, then just stated bluntly, "You're red/green colorblind, aren't you?"

Mulder nodded faintly.

Scully was quiet a while, then asked, "When... how... why didn't you tell me?"

Mulder looked up at her, shrugging, "I don't know; you never asked."

Scully eyed him, "Mulder, I'm your doctor... you should have at least told me."

Mulder looked down at the stupid cookies on the table, then said, "I guess I didn't want you to have to know one more way that I was screwed up... you've got plenty of fodder for that as is."

Scully opened her mouth, couldn't formulate the words for a moment, then asked, "You... you think I think you're screwed up?"

Mulder smirked, "Hey... I may be paranoid... but I'm a realistic paranoid."

Scully frowned, "Mulder... you're not screwed up, you KNOW I don't see you like that. I just don't know why you didn't tell me before."

Mulder sighed, "I think I was ashamed because this was one thing that I couldn't help and didn't ask for. All the other ways I'm screwed up I can trace it back to choices... my character and personality quirks. Something I take the blame for concerning all my other eccentricities. This... its been there since I was born and I didn't do anything to deserve this. There's no way I can justify it."

Scully was quiet a long time. She knew that if her partner felt a certain way about this, she was not going to be able to change his mind just by talking. Instead, she thought over what she had learned.

What she said next was not at all anything that Mulder had suspected. Scully's gentle voice said, "Christmas must look really dull to you."

Mulder smirked. It did, actually. An entire holiday shrouding the town and nights with wide shades of gray.

Mulder smiled, looking up at her, "Yeah... lots and lots of grays."

Scully smiled, then looked down at the cookies, "Hey... why don't you snack around on some cookies for a while and I'll finish the tree? Then we'll move the couch back and we can watch 'This Island Earth'."

Mulder's eyes sparkled. He smiled, saying in a sarcastic and yet sincere tone, "Aww, Scully, you mean it?"

Scully smiled, "Sure... but don't think I'm letting you put your feet on my coffee table."

Mulder chuckled, sitting down at the table and picking up one of the drably frosted cookies and munching while Scully moved back into the living room to finish decorating the Christmas tree solo.



****



When Mulder finally heard Scully call him back into the living room to help move the couch back, the first thing he set his eyes on was the elaborately decorated tree. A tree covered only in blue, white, and gold balls... every single red and green ball still rested in the box on the floor.



END