*        *         *

"I can’t believe you left the umbrella in the office!" Scully yelled over the rain. Thunder boomed, as if punctuating her sentence. They were running towards their motel rooms. There had been no parking near the building, so they had quite a distance to cover to get to their dry rooms.

"It’s not my fault that I forgot it! I thought you had it!" Mulder protested.

Out of the blue, Scully burst into laughter. She stopped for a moment, resting her hands on her knees. She seemed oblivious to the rain that showered her head. Mulder stopped and took a few steps back. He looked at her and asked, "What is so funny? And can’t it wait until we are inside the building instead of outside it?"

Between gasps for breath and giggles, Scully responded, "You just look… so funny standing… in the rain, arguing about… why you don’t have the… umbrella!"

"Ok, enough laughs about me. Now let’s get inside before even my underwear is wet!"

Scully just nodded, unable to answer him. By the time they reached their rooms her giggle fit had subsided into shivering. Mulder was shivering as well, but wasn’t as cold as she was.

"I am going to go and take a long, hot shower and then watch a movie or something," she declared before disappearing inside her room. Mulder unlocked and opened his door, but changed his mind. He closed his door and pulled out the car keys again, making the long, wet trip back.

*          *          *

Scully stepped into the shower chilled to the bone, but stepped out warm. She put on her favorite pair of purple satin pajamas and wrapped a towel around her head turban-style. She went out and sat on the bed, flipping through the TV stations for HBO. For once the hotel they were staying at said there was free HBO.

The end credits for some movie were playing so Scully got back up to brush her hair. She grabbed a scrunchy and put her hair in a ponytail before settling down on the bed to watch the next movie.

<Up next on HBO,> the announcer said, <is ‘Fools Rush In.’>

Scully smiled. She had seen the movie before and loved it. The only thing better would be if she had some popcorn…

She grabbed a pillow and put it under her chin at the end of the bed. Just when Alex woke up to find Isabel gone, someone knocked on the door. Scully frowned and sat up, trying to figure out which door someone was at. She hadn’t really been paying attention to the door. She decided to try the connecting door first, and was pleased to find that it was the correct choice.

Mulder stood in the doorway, one steaming Styrofoam cup in each hand. He had changed into a pair of sweatpants and a worn Knicks t-shirt. His hair was spiky and still wet. "Coffee, anyone?" he asked, looking around Scully’s room with a smile. He took a sip from one cup and raised the other one over his head when Scully began to reach for a cup.

Several times she tried to get the cup, but it was too high. She tried to take his cup, but Mulder responded by raising it over his head as well. Scully frowned and glared at him, hands on hips. She thought for a moment, plotting on how best to get the cup down from above his head. A moment later a smile spread across her face. She reached over and tickled Mulder.

"Eek! Stop it!" he cried through his giggles. She stopped, though only long enough to tell him that he giggled like a girl. "I do not!" he shrieked in his girliest voice.

"Yes, Mulder you do. You probably scream like a girl too!" she retorted, thinking of that one X-Files case with all the metal cockroaches--he had insisted he didn’t scream like a girl, but she doubted him then, and was sure of it now. He definitely giggled, and most likely screamed as well, like a girl. She then tickled him again until he lowered her cup and she took a big sip the moment she had it in her hands.

"Ha. You do to giggle like a girl! Do you want to come in and watch the movie?" Scully asked.

"What movie is it?" he inquired.

"Fools Rush In. I love it. Come on."

"Ok. Sure. Why not?"

Scully sat on the bed, propping her pillow against the wall. Mulder did the same with the other pillow next to her. They both finished their coffee quickly, glad for the warm liquid. Mulder threw his cup at the trash can like it was a basketball and it sailed smoothly in. Scully attempted to do the same, but it landed about two feet to the left of the can. Scully glared first at the can and then at Mulder when he started laughing at her. She was too comfortable to get up and go sock the trash can, but she did playfully sock Mulder.

He rubbed his arm where she had hit him, and she told him that there was no way it could hurt. "I barely hit you, Mulder!"

"Hmph," was the reply she got.

About halfway through the movie Scully rearranged her pillows so that she could lie under the covers and still see the movie. A bit later Mulder did the same.

After a while, Mulder got tired of the movie. Scully had fallen asleep and so it was no fun to make fun of the movie if there was no one to listen to him. He lay on his back and stared at the flashing lights on the ceiling caused by the TV. Pretty soon he, too, fell asleep.

*        *         *

Mulder woke up and the first thing he noticed was the warm body he had his arm wrapped around. He was worried about it for a second because he couldn’t remember where he was. Then he noticed the television playing in the background and remembered falling asleep in Scully’s hotel room during the movie. ‘The only good thing about not dating much is that I don’t have to watch romance movies like that,’ Mulder thought.

He stayed lying in bed with his arm around Scully for another few minutes before getting up, carefully as not to wake her. If she woke up with his arm around her she’d probably pull her gun on him again and he didn’t want her to do that.

Just when he was about to go back into his room Scully stirred and woke up. She pulled her scrunchy out of her hair and ran a hand through it. "Morning," she said sleepily.

"Morning," he replied. "I’m gonna go take a shower and then we can go get breakfast or something. The plane doesn’t leave for another…" Mulder paused to look at his watch, "three hours."

"Ok. How did you like the movie?" Scully asked.

"Do you want the truth or what I always tell my dates after they drag me to a romance flick?"

Scully chuckled. "Ok, I get the idea. Go take your shower. I should be ready in a bit."

As soon as Mulder had left, shutting the connecting door behind him, Scully smiled to herself. Little did Mulder know that she had woken up first. She had felt him shift when he woke and pretended to be asleep. He was probably afraid to stay there for fear of finding her gun in his face when she woke up. But she actually liked it. A lot.