**God bless the person who build this site and let us use it for the common good!**

Special Agent Patrick Eason nudged his partner and pointed with his eyes towards the black car that was pulling into a space at the corner of the block.

"Hey Lawson," he leered, "here comes Scully!"

            Lawson sat up to get a better view, her snug black jeans and clinging blue jumper showing off her figure well as she shifted her weight onto a different foot and waited for a break in traffic to cross the road.

"Oh god, why did I have to get stuck with you when I could have been spending my days with her," Eason said slapping his partners portly stomach.

"Yeah but does she have my sparkling personality?"

"Who cares if she looks like that?"

"Hello Gentlemen."
            Both Agents jumped as Mulder leaned in the open car window, his smile broad and knowing when his eyes followed their gaze as the target they had been watching finally managed to cross the road.

"I guess you're free to go," he said pulling the door open for Lawson to step out.

"'Bout time too!" Lawson said jokingly as he stood up next to Mulder his weight belying his considerable strength.  He stretched his arms up high in the air to soothe his aching muscles after sitting in the car for over five hours.  "No activity, log is in the glove box."

            Mulder sat into the car in time to see Eason hold the door open for Scully and she afforded the other agent a small smile keeping her eyes low and fixing her light jacket across her knees.

            Lawson threw a bag of crisps in through the window at Mulder and smiled.

"Have a good night!"

            Mulder tossed the crisps into the back seat without a second thought and from his pocket he pulled out a bag of seeds.  With a wink at Scully he opened them and left them on the dashboard, taking a handful before he rested back into the chair.

"Is that all you brought?"

"No," he said fumbling in his other pocket, "I brought two."  He showed her the other packet of seeds and smiled at her sigh.

"It's going to be a long night," she said aloud glancing at the clock to see it reading 22:15.

***

            The first raindrops fell at midnight but by half twelve the heavens had opened in a splendour of power that hammered against the windows relentlessly.  Scully pulled her jacket from the back seat and draped it over her cold shivering body.

"You cold?" he asked catching her tremble.

"A little," she conceded, "you?" she looked over at him in his white t-shirt and black cotton jumper.

"No."

            Scully's skin tingled and she shivered as the hairs on her arms rose to attention. 

"Someone walking on your grave," he said as he tossed more shells into the ashtray.

"I didn't know I had one."

"You just need to keep your mind off the cold."

"Yeah."

            She watched as he stretched for another handful of seeds and couldn't help but be jealous of his natural warmth.

"Stop me if you heard this one," he said twisting in his seat towards her.

            Scully sighed loudly and let her head fall back onto the headrest closing her eyes over as he continued.

"Two FBI Agents walk into a bar," he began.

"Oh god Mulder no. Please stop," she pleaded covering both of her hands with her face.  "No more dirty FBI jokes."

"You heard it then?"

"I heard them all."

"You okay Scully, you seem a little on edge?"

"I'm tired Mulder.  Tired and hungry," she admitted.  "And cold, I just want to get through this stakeout and get home to crawl into my bed."

"Yeah…me too," he said unable to resist the jibe.

            She threw him a look but he caught the glint in it and returned it with a soft smile.

"You know what?" he asked smiling innocently at her which heightened her suspicions.  "I could keep you distracted and warm all at the same time!" he said and as he did he reclined his chair back as far as it would go.

"We wouldn't get much surveillance done then," she said pulling her eyes from his lean body before he caught the hungry look that churned behind their cool blue surface.

"What surveillance?" he said sitting up suddenly and looking all around.

"Aren't you afraid you'll miss him?"

"Afraid Scully? Me? Never!" he joked as he fixed his seat.  "I fear nothing."

"Except fire…and women."

"That's not fear, it's common sense."

            He turned to her seriously and captured her eyes, seeing the unmistakable feeling of pleasure pass through them and suddenly he was bombarded with thoughts and images on how he could enhance these emotions for her.  Where he'd have to kiss her to turn her eyes even darker and make her smile more carnal.

"What scares you Scully?" he whispered into the cars sudden silent tension.

"I suppose the same things as everyone else," she answered non-committedly.

"Like what?"

"Loosing my family or my…friends," she added with a small twitch in her eyebrows that surely he would have missed had he not been watching her so intently.

"You're not afraid of the dark?" he asked adding a menacing tone to his voice she didn't recognise.

"No," she answered simply.

"Why not?"

"Because I'm usually armed," she said as she patted the familiar bulge by her hip.

"Okay, let me rephrase the question," he said as he reached for more seeds and she was thankful to notice his voice had returned to the usual understated exuberance it usually had.  "What scared you when you were a kid?"

"My brothers."

"No bogey-men under your bed? Monsters in the attic?"

"No only Bill and Charlie torturing me with tales of horror."

            Mulder couldn't help but smile at the young Dana Scully, whose pictures he'd seen countless times at her mothers house, being tricked and tortured by her two brothers.  But his thoughts soon turned to similar scrapes and fights he'd had with Samantha.

            She sensed the downturn in his mood as the playful gleam in his eye and the curve of his lob-sided smile faded before her.

"I thought I saw a ghost once," she said suddenly.

"Really?" he asked disbelievingly.

"When I was a kid," she said nodding her head happy to see him smiling again.

"Well, well, well Scully, you constantly surprise me."

"After all these years?"

"After all those denials," he retorted.
            Their eyes locked again but this time she pulled away before he could read them fully, leaving him with the hint of more to come.  He watched as she took a long sip from her bottle of water and decided to push her for more ghostly information.

"What happened?" he asked eager to know all the details of the apparition that scared the young Dana Scully.

"It's a long story," she said glancing over at him.

"I'm not going anywhere, are you?"

"No, not yet."
            Mulder shifted in his seat so he faced her fully with his back against the cold window.  He watched as she fumbled with the lid of her water and searched for a way to start her tale.  He smiled as she blushed into his gaze and he knew she'd remember every detail of the night in question but she'd omit much of it from the story he'd hear now.  She would try to fob it off as misunderstood a childish terror that meant nothing, but the fact that she still remembers it told him that it still crept into her mind at night when the wind rattle the windows.

"I was eleven…ish, and we were living on the base in San Diego.  A bunch of us used to hang around together and at night we'd gather by the edge of the forest that ran around the back of the airfield."

"Sounds cosy," he smirked, ignoring her glare.

"We used to play this game, someone would throw a ball in and dare someone else to go in after it.  It was all very scary!" she said mock seriously.

"I can imagine," he said smiling warmly at her, the seeds and the cold forgotten.

"So one night Bill hurls this ball in and dared me," he continued.

"And you couldn't possibly refuse."

"No, so in I went, dark forest, strange noises, no torch."

"Scully stop, I dunno if you're scaring me or turning me on!"

"All the other kids were hollering after me and I got my foot caught in some underbrush.  I fell over and when I looked up I saw a young boy sitting in a tree watching me."

            She paused, giving the moment the weight it deserved, waiting for his cutting remark but he said nothing only waited for her to continue.

"I reached to pull my leg out of the roots and when I stood up the kid was gone."

"That's it? That's your ghost?"

"No…even back then I was an investigator."

            Again she paused to taste her water and Mulder watched her lips purse around the top of the bottle as she took a long drink.

"So what happened?"

"It was something I'll never forget and Charlie says it made me the sceptic I am today.  Anytime we went to a museum or that time we were looking up The Loch Ness monster in the library and I would try to explain it rationally, Charlie would go around shouting "Dr Dana Explains it All", god that annoyed me."

"Well Scully I'm intrigued."

"Are you sure you want to hear this?"

"Are you kidding? Insight into the unflappable Dana Scully? I thrive on it," he said softly his tone thick and heavy with something she couldn't quite place but continued with her story anyway, enjoying the attention he was lavishing on her.  She was used to him treating her like she was the only woman in the world but the focus and attention he was pouring around her made her feel a twinge inside that she hadn't felt in a long time. 

Well not since I had to go and collect him in the gym and he walked over in those Speedos she laughed to herself.

** I only found out about this Fanfic site back in Feb and I've been a total addict since then.  I can't believe this is the seventh piece I've uploaded (I've stopped sleeping and my social life has gone to the dogs, but that's a small price to pay!) and I just wanted to let you all know how much the reviews have been appreciated.  Without them I don't think I'd written this much or this well (I hope).  So Thanks for taking the time to post.  And thanks for Caitlin for taking the time to proof my stuff. **