~~~ February 23, 1997 ~~~

Mulder had a stack of reports in front of him that required 
his signature in triplicate, but he couldn't see them.  The 
reason he couldn't see them was that he was staring at the 
ceiling, one eye closed as he aimed his pencil for the bull's 
eye.  

Earlier he had stood on his desk and taped a paper target to 
one of the ratty acoustic tiles, a misshapen group of rings 
done hastily in blue ink.  The pencils had to be dagger 
sharp, he found, to pierce the flimsy paper and stick to the 
particleboard.

He was tensed with concentration, his lance poised for 
flight, when his desk phone rang the pencil fell from his 
hand to the floor, its lead tip rolling away under his desk.  
"Shit," he said as he reached for the receiver.  "Yeah, 
Mulder."

"Mulder, this is Maloney at the door.  We've got a flower 
delivery for Scully.  Is she around?"

"Flowers?"

"Yeah, a whole big vase of 'em."

Mulder looked around at the empty office.  Scully was off in 
the lab somewhere, looking at tissue samples from some of the 
women from Allentown.  "Uh, I'll come get them," he said, and 
hung up the phone.

He loped up the stairs two at a time and found Maloney 
standing, as promised, with an elaborate bouquet of flowers 
in a striking red vase.  "They're all yours," he said, 
peeking out from behind a large iris.  

The smell reminded him of the fields of wildflowers on the 
vineyard during the summer.  Their delicate leaves tickled 
his nose as he walked them back down to the basement.  As he 
set them on Scully's table, he noticed there was a card 
attached.

Maybe get well soon flowers, he reasoned.

But he and Skinner were the only ones who knew she was sick, 
outside of her family.

Maybe from a man?  A lover?

He turned and looked at the offending flowers again.  It 
didn't seem likely that she was dating, but then again, she 
had turned up in a strange man's apartment only a few short 
weeks ago.  With Jerse out of the picture, maybe Scully was 
auditioning a replacement.

His heart began riding his stomach like a trampoline.  She 
wouldn't.  Not now.  Not with so much on the line.

What do you care anyway?

He was a psych major.  He knew that people reacted to serious 
illness in different ways.  Perhaps Scully was making hay 
while the sun shined.  Or, more basely put, *rolling* in the 
hay.

Nah.  

He bit his lip and looked at the door.  There was no sound of 
impending footsteps.  He could check the card and know for 
sure.

Mulder started toward the vase with his hand outstretched but 
then stopped short.  He wasn't positive he wanted to know 
that Scully had a lover.  But maybe she wanted him to know.  
Maybe that's why she gave the guy her work location, so he 
could send giant flowers and make Mulder look at them all 
day.

He plucked the card from its plastic prop and nudged the tiny 
envelope open with his thumb.  Inside was an ivory-colored 
tag that read: Dear Dana.  Happy birthday, sweetheart. Love, 
Mom.

Oh, crap.  Mulder hurried to stash the card back in place as 
he squinted across the room at his calendar.  It was 
partially obscured by a Yeti photo and a newspaper clipping 
on Leonard Betts, but he could see enough to know the date 
was February twenty-third.

He ran his hands through his hair and paced the length of the 
office.  Of all the years to forget...  He needed to come up 
with a plan, and fast.  Something big!  No, not too big.  
Don't want to make it seem like this is her farewell tour.

He raced to his desk and started ransacking it, looking for 
something he might use as a present.  Moon rock paper weight?  
No.  Alvin the Chipmunk bottle opener?  Definitely no.  

He discarded a half-eaten Hershey bar and a brand new pack of 
Number 2 pencils.  Those would go over well, he thought with 
a roll of his eyes.  "Happy birthday, Scully!  You're number 
two!"  Either way she chose to interpret it would be bad.

Wait, here was a possibility: his old Apollo 11 key chain, 
which he had kept from childhood as a good luck charm.  Not 
that it had turned out to be especially lucky...

He hesitated with it in his palm for a second and then 
decided to go with it.  If it really *was* lucky, then Scully 
would somehow understand his meaning.  These days he was 
especially into the idea of succeeding against long odds.

Present decided upon, he needed some sort of cake.  He dug 
out a couple of lint-dusted quarters from his pants pocket 
and headed for the vending machine.  Surely they carried some 
sort of cupcake.  

When Scully visited the vending machine, she usually returned 
with a granola bar, but there was no way he was going to try 
to attach a candle to bunch of hardened granola.  
Unfortunately, the only baked goods in the machine appeared 
to be apple pie and something called a SnoBall. "What the 
hell is a SnoBall?" Mulder wondered aloud as he dropped his 
coins in.  Out of sheer curiosity, he hit the SnoBall 
combination and the treat dropped down.

He found it satisfyingly squishy.  This would do.

With the key chain boxed in one coat pocket, he put the 
SnoBalls into the other and went in search of Scully.  He 
found her with the lab tech who was always mooning after her.  
Penguin?  Pengrill?

They looked awfully cozy at the microscope.

"Mulder, what are you doing here?" she asked when he entered.

"I came to take you to lunch," he said, leaning on the 
counter next to... Pennell?

"But Agent Pendrell and I haven't finished going over the 
samples yet."

Pendrell.  Right.  "They can wait an hour for lunch, can't 
they?  It's your birthday!"

"I didn't know it was your birthday," Pendrell said as if 
someone had just revealed one of the great mysteries of the 
universe to him.  "Happy birthday, Dana."

"Thank you," Scully said, her cheeks tinged with pink.

Mulder tapped his toe.  "Come on, Scully.  I've got 
reservations."  This was a lie, but he figured it upped the 
odds that she would come along.

She looked at him as if sizing up her options, and then 
sighed as she took off her lab coat.  "I suppose an hour 
wouldn't hurt."

"Where are you going?" Pendrell asked.

Someplace without a lot of cars in the lot, Mulder thought.  
"It's a surprise."

He touched her shoulder to get her going toward the door, but 
she turned back to Pendrell.  "I won't be long," she said, 
and he smiled faintly at her.

"Take your time.  Enjoy the lunch."

As they drove down the street, Mulder kept his eyes peeled 
for a passable eatery.  "Agent Pendrell is probably back 
there drawing your name with a heart around it in his lab 
book," he said.

"Oh, stop it.  He's been nothing but professional."

He looked over at her pointedly, and she colored again.  
"Okay, maybe I have noticed him staring from time to time," 
she said with her eyes firmly trained at her lap.  "But he's 
always been very nice, and he's one of the few guys over 
there who is always willing to help us no matter what time it 
is."

"I wonder why that is."

Mulder found a bar and grill place that looked promising.

"I should have invited him along," he said, teasing her as 
they got out.  "Had him pop naked out of a cake for you."

She laughed and shook her head as they walked to the door.  
"Mulder, even if I were so inclined -- which I'm not -- it's 
ridiculous to entertain such a notion."

"Why?  You don't go for red heads?"

"You know very well why," she said quietly, and he stopped in 
his tracks on the sidewalk.

"Scully..." She stopped too and faced him.

"Mulder, I haven't even told him why I have renewed interest 
in the women at Allentown.  He's going over these samples and 
every time he says Penny's name I think how it could just as 
easily be my blood and my tissue that he's analyzing."

"It's not you," he said, drawing closer.  "You're doing 
okay... right?"

She nodded, her hair falling across her face and hiding her 
eyes from his view.  "For now," she said.  "But the point is, 
my health is somewhat of an illusion.  The point is that 
Agent Pendrell has his whole life in front of him."

Mulder reached out and touched her chin with one gloved 
finger, tilting her face up so he could see her.  "So do you.  
So do we all."

She tried to smile but couldn't quite make it.  "Let's just 
go eat, okay?"

She walked on ahead, her stride quick and efficient as 
always, and within seconds she had disappeared into the 
building.  Mulder shivered as a winter wind cut him across 
the legs, and then he, too, headed for shelter from the cold.

~~~~~~~~

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