The Star by Leyla Harrison 

Disclaimer: Mulder and Scully belong to Chris Carter. Lucky for him.

Classification: VA, Mulder/Scully UST

Rating: PG

Spoilers: The Ghosts Who Stole Christmas

Summary: What did Mulder and Scully give each other for Christmas, anyhow?

Thanks to Stacey for the fast response and comments.

Special Note: Have a wonderful holiday season, eveyone!

*****

I swear to God, the look on her face was incredible. She looked just
like a little kid.

Her eyes kind of widened and then softened at the edges. Then the blue
of her irises danced around. I can't even begin to explain how her mouth
turned up. Her whole body language just screamed giddy, and for Scully
that's pretty restrained. But hey -- I don't get to see Scully very
giddy very often, and it had been a rough night, you know? So it was
nice to see.

We sat down on the couch and I was very vaguely aware of the fact that
the apartment was a little drafty, but that Scully's body acted just
like a compact radiator, giving off heat as she sat down next to me.

"Go ahead, open yours first," she said to me, but I shook my head.

"Nope. We open them together." Scully groaned, but I knew she was just
kidding around. "I insist, Scully."

"Fine, fine, we open them together," she practically snorted.

I ripped open the paper covering the small box. She knows that I'm
red-green colorblind and I noticed that Scully had taken the care to
wrap it in a paper that was mostly gold. But there were gray spots mixed
into it, meaning that it was either a red or green foil print with gold.
I hoped for red, and in that moment, as I always did, I wished that I
could see the exact shade of her hair more clearly. Most of the time it
just looked gold to me, even though I knew that it was mostly red.

I could hear Scully unwrapping the small tube and turning it from side
to side. "Can I shake it?" she asked.

"Sure can," I said, sneaking a peek at her.

I was rewarded with a small black box. It was like a jewelry box, and
for a moment I held my breath. What had she done? I had gotten her
exactly what I had said -- something small. Well, so to speak. But if
she had bought me jewelry...

And what the hell was she doing, buying me jewelry anyhow? I wasn't
exactly the gold chain Guido kind of guy.

I popped the box open at the same time as Scully pulled the top off her
tube.

"Christ," I whispered.

Resting on a pool of black velvet was a slim black pen. And not just any
old pen. The top of the box was embossed with the Mont Blanc logo.

Scully paused before sliding her present out of the tube. "Do you like
it?" she asked shyly.

Do I like it? Do I like it, Scully? Gee, no, it's just one of the finest
pens on the face of the planet.

"Scully, it's..." I trailed off. I didn't want to stutter. "It's
amazing. It's incredible."

My face fell.

"Mulder, what's wrong?" she asked, her face instantly creasing with
concern. "You don't like it?"

I lowered my eyes. "I thought you said you got me a little something."

Scully shrugged her shoulders, a hint of a smile playing on her lips.
"Well, it's little. And it's something."

"Yeah, but it must have cost you a few hundred dollars, at the very
least." I was starting to feel a little guilty about the present I had
gotten her. It was going to pale in comparison. It was going to be a
crashing failure.

Scully shrugged again. "I had a little extra money this year," she said
enigmatically.

No kidding, I thought. There were obviously things about Scully that I
didn't know. After all, I had seen how many presents she had piled up in
the backseat of her car earlier in the evening. How the hell did she
come up with the money?

I put it out of my mind as I watched Scully pull a scroll of paper from
the cardboard tube she was holding and set the tube down on the coffee
table. She unrolled the paper and looked at it, perplexed.

"So?" I asked hopefully.

Down, boy, I thought. Don't get too narcissistic.

"What is it?" she asked.

If my face fell, I didn't let it show. I leaned over and felt the warmth
of her body warming mine. "See, Scully," I showed her, pointing to some
text amid the jumble of the page. "DKS. It's a star."

"A star?" she asked.

I tried to sound casual. "It was all the rage a few years back. You
could buy someone a star. Name it. Then you'd get a map, showing you
where in the sky it was, in case you wanted to see it."

I stopped talking only because I looked up and saw that Scully's eyes
were wide. And shining. And very possibly moist. "You got me a star?"
she asked.

I nodded dumbly. "You like it?" I asked hopefully.

"Mulder," she breathed, her face close to mine suddenly for some reason
I couldn't explain, "I love it."

The closeness of her skin was distracting. I wanted to show her on the
map where her star was, but I was taken by the smell of her perfume, her
soap, or maybe it was just the smell of sweat on her skin from hours
before. Before we had gone into the house.

Scully backed away and leaned back on the couch, clutching the piece of
paper, reading it almost greedily. I was dazed by her happiness. And I
had thought the gift was going to fall flat.

"Let's go out," Scully said suddenly.

"Out?" I asked. "It's almost dawn on Christmas Day. You have somewhere
to be, Scully, under the tree, remember? Spreading a little Christmas joy?"

"I will," she said, getting up and pulling me to my feet. "We should go.
There's something I want to go see."

*****

Forty-five minutes later, we were inside the Georgetown Astronomical
Observatory, and Scully was leaning her face into a telescope. I didn't
question her about who she knew, or how she had managed to finagle her
way in here in the middle of the night on Christmas Day.

"Mulder, look. Look."

She motioned towards the telescope and beckoned me to take a look. I
leaned my head down and pressed my eye in to the eyepiece, which was
still warm from Scully having just taken her look.

"Do you see it?" It wasn't just the heat from her body that warmed me
now. It was her breath, right on my neck. I stared into the telescope,
trying to force myself to concentrate. I was staring at a million stars,
a dark night sky and a million little points of white light.

"I'm not sure I know which one it is," I murmured.

"Take a look at the map."

I backed away and looked at the piece of paper I had given her, finding
the spot on the page in a mass of black ink dots. Then I put my eye back
to the viewfinder.

"Do you see it now? Do you?"

"I see it, Scully," I said, and by some miracle, I did see it. My
picture-perfect memory helped me to correctly identify the neighboring
stars, and I focused my vision on that one spot of light. "There it is.
There you are."

I stepped back from the telescope and it was so quiet in there I could
hear both of us breathing.

"You gave me a piece of the heavens, Mulder." Her voice was low and
husky, and for a moment I could see her body there on the floor of the
library of that fucking house, her white shirt stained with sticky
blood. I wanted to close my eyes to erase the vision, but doing so would
erase the vision standing right in front of me.

"I'm glad you like it," I murmured back.

We stared at each other in the silence, in the dim light of the room.
The sun was going to come up soon, illuminating the sky and the world,
and the moment would be lost. Neither of us moved or spoke.

"I love it," she said, each word clear. "Thank you."

"You're welcome. And thank you for my pen."

Scully moved first, reaching forward for my arm. "Let's go," she said.

*****

I took my coat off in the entryway of my apartment and turned to see
Scully with her coat still on. I looked at her questioningly.

"I really do have to go," she said, and I could hear the regret in her
voice and see it in her eyes.

I nodded. "I understand."

"So what are you going to do today, Mulder?" she asked.

"Oh," I shrugged, "you know, catch up on some sleep, some reading, and
some television."

"Sounds like an exciting Christmas to me."

"The best," I said, dreading the thought of bad television and holiday
themed movies that would likely be running all day long.

Scully slipped her hands into her coat pockets. "I'll call you later."

"If you have time," I said.

"I'll make the time."

I nodded. "Well, you should go."

Scully stepped forward and put her arms around me, my chin resting on
her shoulder, my nose buried in her hair. "Merry Christmas, Mulder," she
whispered, right in my ear, and released me.

She smiled, and was out the door before I could say anything.

"Merry Christmas to you too, Scully," I said to the closed door.

I walked back into the living room and sat down on the couch. The pink
of the dawn was starting to shine through the window, warming the
apartment. I picked up the box with the pen inside. I took the pen out
of the box and examined it carefully. On the edge of the gold rim at the
middle I saw something engraved there.

Mont Blanc, and then around on the other side, the initials FWM.

The pen felt heavy and solid, as if I held the weight the earth in my
hand. In the shape of a very expensive writing instrument, of course.

So I gave Scully heaven, and she gave me earth. Ironic, I thought with a
smile.

"Merry Christmas to you too, Scully," I repeated aloud, and then reached
for the remote.

Maybe I could find a Christmas movie on cable and enjoy it after all.

END