Like a Valentine

Part One

At first, when Mulder came around, Emily was very shy. Rarely would she entertain his horrible dad-jokes, or accept his offer to play dolls. The only true laugh he'd gotten out of her thus far was the whole Mr. Potato head impersonation a while back. Scully insists that she will come around and that sometimes when the two are alone, her daughter will ask random questions about him.

She's curious about you, you know. Last night she asked me why you have a key to my apartment.

Scully had to explain that she and Mulder are partners in the FBI, to which Emily added that "that's the big dog police." A smile pulled at her lips as she nodded in agreement before continuing.
"Mulder and I are....well...best friends. And best friends trust each other wholly."
Emily still wasn't putting together why that gave Mulder the right to a key.
"You see Emily, I've known Mulder for quite some time now. I trust him and he trusts me. Sometimes Mulder has to come here and get things while I'm not here. Or sometimes Mulder comes to check on me when I'm not feeling too well."
Emily looked away briefly, sucking in her bottom lip. She's thinking very hard about all of this and her next question.
"How come Mulder sleeps on the couch sometimes?" Scully really didn't see that one coming. "Well," How to word this. "Sometimes Mulder, uh, wants to...sleep over..."
"Grownup's have sleepovers?" Emily seemed very interested now. Scully, on the other hand, realizes she's digging the hole deeper.
"Sometimes," Scully replies, cautiously. The five-year-old is quite a curious one. A sponge too. She retains anything and everyone says. Sometimes she'll even bring up something she'd heard months back.
"Mommy, does Mulder like you?"
"Well, I sure hope so."
"No, mommy, like does he like you like a valentine?"
Where on Earth had she heard that?
Scully is rendered silent for a good while. Carefully planning out her answer, all the while flustered and pink-cheeked.
"I—I don't know, baby."
"I think he does."

And they left it at that.

"Is this my cue to stop crashing on your couch, Scully?"
Mulder's giggling over the rim of his coffee cup while Scully sits in a chair at the front of his desk.
"I don't know Mulder. She's...something else. I mean she asked if you like me... I mean like me like me. I don't know where she learned that from."
Mulder rubs the pad of his thumb across his bottom lip,
"Maybe daycare? Cartoons?...or maybe she's hooked on the soaps?"
Scully rolls her eyes, not appreciating his "help".
"No, I mean...well, what do you want her to think? That I sleepover at your house because I'm homeless? Or the truth?"
Scully looks up from the nail she'd been fixated on for the last few minutes,
"The truth?" Scully would love nothing more than to know his side of the truth.
Lately, he's been sneaking in her apartment at an hour he knows Emily will be asleep and slipping into her bed; of course, she's there, awake, waiting with open arms ( and sometimes legs ). And just before morning, before he knows Emily will wake, he finds his way to the long striped couch. They've become quite tangled in something...valentine-ish.
"Yeah." Comes his reply, and nothing more than that.
"Mulder, I–"
"Look, I get it, Scully. You're worried what she might think, or feel. I get and respect that. But I don't think to lie to her...or yourself... is for the best."
He's got a point there. But Scully cannot bring herself to even admit that these nights of random passion are more than just that. They're two consenting adults with needs, right? Just... they're two consenting adults with needs that absolutely love each other, yet neither have the guts to admit it out loud. To breathe those words into existence would be terrifying. Much more terrifying than any X File they've been on.
"Hey, I'm not saying you have to unload all of this on her right away. We could work into it. Take it slow, as slow as you'd like."
"Mulder, I–" I'm scared.
"I know, Scully. I am too." He read her mind. He always does.