It had done nothing but rain this week, not that unusual in D.C., but even those who'd lived here all their lives were scowling out at the endless drizzle and the heavy charcoal clouds that seemed to have soaked up every glimmer of light and colour from the sky. It never stopped, merely waxed and waned between a wet mist that seeped into your clothes, sipping the warmth from within like a hummingbird at a blossom, and a pelting torrent of raindrops hard enough to make any exposed skin sting.

The basement office felt like a cozy refuge in the middle of the endless storms, fluorescent lights flickering occasionally with an amiable buzz. The afternoon was ending, drifting lazily towards early evening, and Mulder had stopped reading the file in front of him some time ago. Instead, he was watching Scully as she read, toying with the end of her pen between her lips.

It was Thursday, which meant it was almost Friday, which meant the weekend and movie night and an increased likelihood of time spent with Scully. She hadn't mentioned plans with her mom or any other engagements so maybe, if he was lucky, they would get more than one day together. With all the rain, it might be a nice weekend for an art gallery or a museum; an intimate conversation in a coffee shop far from work where he might steal a kiss from her when she wasn't expecting it and she would laugh, her mouth sweet from espresso and chocolate, and then she would rest her head against his shoulder as her hand found his below the table.

It was all still new, this strange dance between them, and he wasn't sure if it was that the jumble of his life had been upended and scattered all over the floor or if, instead, everything had inexplicably been put away properly for the first time ever. Either way, there was a lassitude that had overtaken him, like sinking into a hot bath, and he was content to let the music play, wherever their steps might lead them.

He'd almost settled into a light doze though his eyes remained open, lulled into a trance-like state punctuated by the occasional scratch of Scully's pen on the papers in front of her or the muted squeak of her chair as she shifted.

"Mulder?"

It took him a moment from him to register that she had spoken out loud, taking in her bemused smile as he blinked and sat up taller. "Huh?"

"What do you say we call it a day?"

As much as he was loath to leave the pleasant sanctuary of the office, to drive home in the never-ending rain and spend an evening alone in his apartment, he nodded. At least it was Thursday-almost-Friday. "Yeah, I think my brain was toast about an hour ago."

Scully stacked the papers she'd been reading into two neat piles on her desk while he tossed a random assortment of files haphazardly into his briefcase; something to do in the long hours before sleep finally overtook him. He shrugged on his overcoat, not bothering to tie up the belt at the waist, and took Scully's black wool coat from the other peg, holding it open for her as she finished gathering the last of her things.

She turned her back to him, sliding her arms into the wide sleeves, and he couldn't resist pushing back the hair around her shoulder to breathe a kiss against the side of her throat.

"Mulder…"

Her voice was soft, amused, as he straightened up and moved back, so he knew he hadn't overstepped too much.

"I know. I couldn't help myself. Won't happen again." He grinned as she turned to look at him, shaking her head lightly.

"Won't happen again, huh? That would be a real shame." She ran a finger along each of his lapels, smoothing them out so they would sit flat, careful and slow, before looking up to meet his eyes. She swallowed and licked her lips hesitantly. "So… I was thinking that maybe, if you didn't have any plans this weekend, you could bring an overnight bag tomorrow. Stay over until Sunday."

He blinked in surprise. He'd spent the night once or twice, but that hadn't been something they'd exactly planned out before hand. This… this was a proper invitation. His mouth opened and closed once before he couldn't contain his smile. "Uh… yeah. Absolutely. I'd love that."

Her shoulders relaxed as she grinned back at him. "Good." Her fingers were still clinging to the edges of his lapels as she raised up on her toes to brush her lips to his, just enough to make him shiver. "See you tomorrow, Mulder."

Friday passed by at an achingly slow pace as Mulder watched the sweeping second hand on his watch go around and around and around. He wasn't entirely convinced that it wasn't going backwards whenever he wasn't looking at it directly.

The monthly budget meeting with the other department heads.

A review of the case reports still outstanding to be completed by the end of next week, complete with a stern glance and the full topography of forehead creases from Skinner to show he meant business.

Mulder leaned forward and nodded and muttered assurances at all the right places, but his thoughts were buoyantly elsewhere, fixed on the bag he'd slipped beneath his desk this morning before Scully had even arrived.

By three o'clock, the Styrofoam coffee cup in his desk drawer was overflowing with sunflower seed shells and he'd sharpened every pencil from the fresh box he'd picked up in the supply room. They were all neatly lined up in a row across his desk, a line of soldiers ready for duty. He checked his watch — time was still moving in the right direction — and eyed the ceiling speculatively.

He was startled by the sound of Scully abruptly pushing out her chair and standing up. "I don't know about you," she said, reaching over to switch off her computer monitor, "but I can't concentrate." There was a pause as she took in the platoon of pencils and her eyebrow quirked northward. "And you can't either. And it's making me crazy. So, what do you say we sneak out early?"

"Why, Miss Scully," he grinned as he leaned back in his chair, "what a decidedly blatant waste of taxpayer dollars, not to mention rule breaking and conduct unbefitting a federal agent. I, frankly, am shocked."

She leaned towards him, bracing her hands on her desk and giving him an eyeful of cleavage and the hint of something lacy in a colour he hadn't seen on her before. He swallowed as his gaze dipped down of its own volition. "Conduct unbefitting a federal agent is for later. Once we're home," she whispered in a husky voice that left him gaping like one of his mollies, his blood rushing rapidly in a southerly direction.

"Noted," he murmured, forcing his eyes back up to her face and the coy little smile she was now sporting.

"Besides, we put in more overtime than most of them combined," she said matter-of-factly as she straightened up.

"Hey, you don't need to convince me." He stood up, pencils forgotten — at least until Monday — and reached for the bag under his desk, swinging the strap over his shoulder. "You had me at 'what do you say we sneak out early'."

Their only stop on the way to Scully's apartment was the video store, where they loaded up on the 7 days, 7 movies, 7 dollars special along with an armful of junk food. If they didn't leave the apartment at all over the weekend that was more than fine with him, although he wasn't sure what Scully had in mind.

They picked up dinner from the Chinese place on 7th — the one that made the best beef lo mein in town — and ate it right out of the containers while sitting on the couch and watching the first of their movie selections.

By the second movie, the leftovers were in the fridge and Scully was curled against his side, his fingers lightly caressing the strip of bare skin where her shirt had ridden up. Every time she reached for a strand of red licorice from the open bag on the coffee table, it rode up a little more. Not that he was complaining.

Had he ever felt this content, this still? Normally, his thoughts were like ants; always moving, scurrying, foraging and driving him forward; but, not tonight.

Not tonight, with Scully in his arms, with nowhere else he'd rather be.

He nuzzled her ear with the tip of his nose, pressing a kiss to her temple.

"You know, if I didn't know better, I'd think you weren't interested in the movie, even though this one was your pick," she said in a low voice, turning her face towards his.

He hummed in agreement before kissing her softly. "You may find this hard to believe, but I think I've found something more interesting than the movie." He whispered the words against her mouth, pausing to kiss her again part way through, and then again when he had finished.

"Hmmm…" She shifted in his arms so she could straddle him, wrapping her arms around his neck and teasing the edge of his hair with her fingertips. "Maybe you should show me."

"I think that can be arranged." With his hands at her hips to hold her in place, he tilted up to press his pelvis against hers, letting her feel how hard he was already as he captured her mouth in a passionate kiss. He could taste the licorice she had been eating, and pleasure flooded through him with each slide of her tongue against his, with each rhythmic grind of her lower body.

She was panting by the time she pulled back, her pupils dark with desire. "Mulder?"

"Yeah?"

"Take me to bed."

He was walking the shoreline between waking and sleep, the tide coming in to lap around his feet, tempting him to wade further out into the glassy blue depths, when he heard it.

A snarl.

He was awake instantly, the hair on the back of his neck suddenly raised as his body broke out in goosebumps.

A growl, menacing and low, was coming from somewhere below the bed.

He was momentarily frozen, unable to even draw in a breath, until the sound abruptly stopped.

All was quiet now, but it was an unnatural silence, pregnant and waiting.

"Scully?" he whispered urgently. "Did you hear that?"

She made a muffled noise, still thoroughly enveloped in the blankets. "Mmph. What?"

"It sounded like something snarling. Like an animal or something."

She burrowed tighter into the blankets. "Dunno. Didn't hear anything… Night Mulder."

Sadly, post-coital Scully was also dead-to-the-world-asleep Scully, which was slightly inconvenient at the moment.

Maybe he'd just imagined it, a waking dream.

As the minutes passed and nothing happened, he relaxed back against his pillow, breathing in the pleasant floral scent of fabric softener. What would it be like to live like this all the time? Crawling into bed next to Scully after a long day, his suits hanging next to hers in the closet… It sounded… well, it sounded amazing. But would having him around all the time, at work and at home, be too much for her? Maybe it was better this way — the occasional weekend, but not a permanent thing. At least for now. If things continued—

There was another growl and he stilled. There was no question that he was awake now, and this was no dream. It sounded like it was directly beneath him.

He sat up carefully and debated briefly whether her should lean over and look under the bed or physically get out of bed and crouch down to look underneath. Maybe one of Scully's neighbours had a cat and it had inadvertently gotten into her apartment through an open window. He certainly wasn't keen to get a face full of claws.

The growling stopped for a moment and then continued.

This was ridiculous.

Without another thought, he slid out of bed and crouched down on his knees, flipping up the bottom edges of the blanket so he could peer underneath.

He couldn't see a thing — of course it was pitch black under there — but the growling was clearly louder and emanating from somewhere close. Dammit, if only he had a flashlight.

"Here, kitty, kitty," he murmured in what he hoped was a soothing tone. "No one's going to hurt you." He groped ahead of him as far as he could reach, trying not to think about the fact that if a cat had gotten in through an open window, a rabid raccoon could have just as easily made the same leap of faith.

The snarls intensified and he pulled his hand back in a panic. He could hear rustling now, and a strange jangling that sounded like someone holding a set of keys. He flinched back and stood up rapidly.

There was something under the bed, Scully's sleep be damned.

He took the few steps to the light switch and flicked on the lights.

The growls stopped instantly.

"Mulder…" came a sleepy Scully voice. "Whazzit?"

"Nothing. It's fine. Just… checking on something." He kept his eyes glued to the shadows underneath the bed as he cautiously pulled the door beside him closed. He didn't want whatever was under there to bolt out into the rest of the apartment and find a new hiding place.

"Mmm… okay." She pulled the covers over her head and rolled over.

Taking careful, measured steps he crept back over towards the bed and crouched down.

There was nothing there.

Nothing at all.

No cat, no menacing beast.

The space under the bed was almost immaculate — no surprise there — nary a stray sock nor nest of procreating dust bunnies to be found — with the exception of one thing. He had to fully extend his arm to reach it and it jingled as he pulled it towards him.

It was a torn, tan coloured collar with a bone-shaped metal tag attached to it.

He didn't have to turn it over, he already knew what was engraved on the other side, but he did it anyway.

Queequeg.

He sat there for a moment, not quite sure what to think. Of all the ghosts he expected to come back to haunt him at some point in his life, surely an annoying pomeranian hadn't been high on the list.

Placing the collar down on the nightstand, he turned off the lights and crawled back into bed next to Scully. She curled her body against his with a contented sigh.

It was a long time before he fell asleep, even though the rest of the night was completely uneventful.

The morning sun streaming in past the curtains had woken them up, but they'd taken their time wringing every last ounce of pleasure from each other before stumbling into the bathroom for a shared shower that, before long, turned into another round of love making, this time with Scully against the shower wall, one fist gripping the shower curtain while the nails of her other hand dug into the flesh of his back. It was a point of pride for him that she'd pulled down the shower curtain rod when she came, although it did get the bathroom rather wet.

Then, they'd eaten scrambled eggs and toast along with mugs of steaming hot coffee before Scully had declared that she was quite ready to go back to bed again. It was definitely not the sort of morning to bring up the possibility of ghost dogs.

In the late afternoon, they moved to the couch, ordered a pizza, and restarted the movie they hadn't watched much of from the night before. He kept glancing over at this version of Scully that he was finally allowed to witness — no makeup, her hair dried into tangles of natural waves. She was wearing a tight pajama top with spaghetti straps that exposed her shoulders and the light constellations of freckles that dusted her skin. Skin that he could touch, that she wanted him to touch.

"Mulder, stop staring at me," she said dryly, not taking her eyes from the screen.

He ran the tip of his finger over the curve of her shoulder. "I can't help it. You're pretty."

He was quite sure he heard her mutter, "Oh, brother…" under her breath, but he let it slide with a grin. Extending his arms above his head, he stretched out his back and biceps. As much as he ran and did the odd day of weights, the last twenty-four hours had certainly made him aware of the muscle groups he didn't work as often.

There was a sudden trio of hard knocks against the door.

"That'll be the pizza," Scully said, groaning a little as she stood up. Clearly, he wasn't the only one with sore muscles. "I'll get the door. You get the plates and napkins. There should be a bottle of white wine in the fridge, too."

"Your wish is my command."

He stood up, pausing for a moment to stretch the kinks out of his lower back, when something pinched — no, bit — the back of his ankle, hard enough to make him yelp.

"You okay?" Scully asked, turning to look behind her at him clutching his injured foot. "What did you do?"

The pizza guy gave him a bored looking smirk as he glanced down at the back of his ankle, at the neat half circle indentations dotted with the impressions of tiny teeth. "I, uh… don't know… nerve pinch or something?"

"Well, sit down for now. I can take a look in a minute if you want." She closed the door, balancing the large pizza box in her other hand.

"No, that's okay. It feels fine now."

When she went into the kitchen, he quickly bent down to look under the couch, just in case, but he wasn't surprised that he couldn't see anything there.

"Queequeg," he whispered to the empty space below the couch, "is that you?"

There was the unnatural growl again, low and menacing, and it made him shiver, like a trickle of ice water dripping down his vertebrae. With a snap that sounded very much like teeth, the invisible source of the noise seemed to rush toward him, startling him enough that he lost his balance, landing hard on his tailbone and shoving the coffee table to the side.

"Mulder! What happened?"

Scully rushed in from the kitchen as he rubbed his ass ruefully.

"I must have caught my foot on the edge of the couch. Lost my balance."

"Well, I can see that." She shook her head and chuckled as she offered him a hand up. "What's with you tonight?"

"I don't know. Just clumsy I guess." He attempted a grin, but she regarded him curiously with one eyebrow edging up.

"You sure?"

"Yeah. Of course." He distracted her by draping his arm across her shoulders and guiding her towards the kitchen and the delightful aroma of melted cheese. "So… pizza? We need to keep up our strength after all."

It was another restless night, punctuated by snaps and growls that woke him whenever he managed to drift off. In the morning, the contents of his overnight bag were scattered across the floor.

Luckily, Scully was still dozing when he got up to use the bathroom, so he was able to surreptitiously gather it all up and shove it back in his bag before she saw.

As much as he was reluctant to say good-bye to Scully at the end of the weekend, he was relieved that the presence didn't follow him home that evening as he collapsed into an exhausted slumber on his couch.

The next few weeks passed by quickly in a blur of back-to-back cases that took them away from D.C., but once things had settled down, he was extraordinarily happy when Scully invited him to spend the weekend at her place again, even though she already had dinner plans with her mom for Friday night. She'd extended an invitation for him to come along, but he'd declined with the excuse of not wanting to intrude on their time together. That was partially true.

The full truth of it was that he wanted some time alone in her apartment for what he was about to attempt. He felt slightly guilty about his reluctance to share his suspicions with Scully, but it felt oddly like this was something between him and Queequeg to work out — mano a mano.

He wasn't sure what was precisely needed to appease a dog ghost — there was a surprising lack of literature addressing pet hauntings — but somehow he didn't think smoldering sage was the way to go about it. After dropping his bag in her bedroom, he opened it up and took out a box of bone-shaped dog biscuits.

He left the first one under his side of the bed.

Another went along the baseboards in the bathroom behind the clothes hamper.

Under the couch.

In the corner of the living room.

He felt badly about leaving dog biscuits everywhere, but they were hard and dry and unlikely to get moldy or smelly any time soon. Hopefully, this would do the trick and he would be able to dispose of them before Scully even knew they were there, although with her fastidious cleaning habits, he wouldn't have long.

It took him a few minutes to find the torn-up collar — Scully had placed it in a glazed green bowl on the top of her dresser. With it in hand, he dimmed all the lights in the apartment, and lit the two candles on the coffee table before sitting down cross legged, facing the corner of the living room where Queequeg's plush little dog bed had been. For good measure, he piled up a handful of dog biscuits there, too. Then he brushed his hands off on his jeans and placed the collar down directly in front of him. He figured he had two hours at least before Scully was back from dinner, but hopefully it wouldn't take that long.

So, he waited.

And waited.

Not sure what else to do, he picked up the collar and jangled the tag. "Queequeg… I've got some delicious dog treats that you can't really eat."

Silence.

"Look, I don't know if you're there right now, but I just wanted to say I was sorry. I'm sorry you, uh… got eaten. Like that. I can't imagine that was a nice way to go." He cleared his throat and went on. "I know I wasn't very nice to you on that trip and that Scully really loved you, and I was pretty thoughtless about how I reacted to her being upset about what happened."

He could have sworn that he heard the light clicking of nails on the floor, but when he stopped to concentrate, he couldn't hear anything aside from the low hum from the fridge in the kitchen.

"I know you were crazy about Scully. I remember the times I brought Scully home from the airport, or the odd time after work, and you were always so happy to see her — jumping around, barking… peeing on the floor." Mulder paused and shook his head. "But here's the thing: I'm crazy about her, too. Things are changing between us and… well, it's incredible. I'm the luckiest bastard on the planet, even if it took me years to realize it."

There was a shift in the air, a sudden chill that descended from above, as though someone had dropped a shawl of icy spiderwebs across his shoulders. He stayed very still, half expecting the warmth of his breath to emerge as a puff of fog. He hadn't imagined the disgruntled snort that came from somewhere behind him, but he didn't dare turn around as he didn't want to risk interrupting the moment now that he had the spirit's attention.

"I'd like to propose a truce — for Scully's sake. We both care about her. We both want to protect her, not like she needs it… I'm grateful that you're still around, watching over her, and I'm not asking you to stop."

He had the distinct feeling the Queequeg was right behind him and he had the creeping sensation of being watched.

"I only want what's best for her. I promise. And I solemnly vow that if I break my word, you can chew on my ankles and eat my stuff and snarl at me all you want. All I'm asking for is a chance. That's it."

He sat quietly and waited, not sure what else to say.

At once, both candles suddenly went out, and the room descended into the shadowy gloom of twilight. The pressure around him increased, like diving beneath the ocean waves as a boy, down, down, down, until his head ached and his lungs were desperate for air. He made an involuntary gasp as panic and adrenaline flooded through him—

And then the tension was gone.

He was alone.

It took a few minutes before his heart stopped racing and he was able to move again, standing up and easing the strain out of his cramped muscles from sitting in the same position for who knew how long. He turned the lights back on and helped himself to a shot of scotch from the bottle Scully kept in the top cupboard.

He slumped down wearily on the couch and nursed his scotch, feeling completely physically drained. Had it worked? He sure hoped so, but there was no definitive way to tell. He would just have to wait and see.

He was on edge for the rest of the weekend, to the point that Scully dragged him out for a run on Sunday morning to burn off some energy, but all was quiet. Peaceful, even.

The next few weekends he spent at Scully's place were serene. He slept well, no snarls or growls waking him up unexpectedly and his ankles remained unpunctured by ethereal fangs. Aside from Scully's bewilderment at finding a dog biscuit he'd missed when cleaning up, there had been no reminders of Queequeg's presence at all.

He couldn't say he missed it, but it had his thoughts creeping towards possibilities he'd never truly considered, things he might once have thought out of reach.

"Hey, Scully," he murmured, pressing his face against her back between her shoulder blades. He hadn't shaved since Friday morning, and it was now Saturday night, so there was enough scruff to make her giggle and pull away from him. He pulled her in closer, resting his chin against her shoulder. "I was thinking."

"Oh? Did you hurt yourself?"

He moved his chin back and forth against the impossible softness of her skin and she laughed again. "I'm serious."

"About what?"

"I think we should get a dog. Not right now," he continued on rapidly, "but someday. When we have a house somewhere."

She was silent, and he could hear her unpacking the implications of his words. "I had a dog, but you didn't seem to like him much."

"He was a bit small for me." He didn't add 'yappy' or 'incontinent' to that list, at least not out loud. "But… he wasn't a terrible dog, really. He was sort of cute in a poofy, massive underbite sort of way."

"Hmmm…" She turned in his arms to face him. "I do miss having him around. Although it was sometimes hard to make arrangements for him when we were out of town."

He reached up to tuck a strand of hair around the shell of her ear. "Well, maybe eventually things will settle down enough to make it work."

"I think I'd like that."

She kissed him softly, her leg sliding between his as he deepened the kiss. They made love slowly, exploring, tasting, teasing. He would never tire of the feeling of her body beneath his, of the pressure of her legs wrapping around him as she tried to keep him as deep and as close as she could. The wide-eyed wonder in her eyes that he was sure mirrored his own, even now, that this was truly the two of them moving together as they chased the precipice of their shared release.

Afterward, with Scully still trembling from the aftershocks, he kissed the sweaty tendrils of hair that had stuck to her forehead, holding her close as his galloping heart slowed. She was fast asleep less than ten minutes later after a quick trip to the bathroom to clean up, but he felt too wound up to sleep yet. His heart was overfull with how much he loved her, the weight of it making it hard to breathe.

He'd been lying there in the dark for an indeterminate amount of time when he heard it: a soft tapping of nails across the floor.

His heart sank. It hadn't worked.

He held his breath, waiting for the inevitable snarl, but instead there was a brief jangle of metal and the sensation of a small warm lump landing beside his feet. The curtains were partly open, letting in enough illumination from the street lights outside that he could see fairly well, and there was nothing there that he could see — nothing at all — despite the fact that he could distinctly feel a small animal turning around once, twice, and then settling down against the back of his calves with a quiet sigh.

Mulder smiled, nuzzling his face against the sweetness of Scully hair, and drifted off to sleep to the melodic sound of ghostly doggy snores.

Written for the October 2019 X-Files FanFic Exchange (organized by the always awesome OnlyTheInevitable) for msrafterdark. The prompt for this story was "snarl" and the idea for this came to me almost immediately. Meg, your work is gorgeous and beyond amazing; it was an honour to write for you. I hope you like it!

Thanks to the bestest beta, Josie Lange, for all her help and encouragement!