Summary: "Thirty-three," she sighs, looking up at the ceiling full of pencils. "I cleaned them up once. Do I have to clean them up again?" "No one said you had to clean them up." Mulder. Reyes. MRR. Mulder/Reyes Romance. M/R/UST.

TITLE: Fortuna Caeca Est
AUTHOR: Bobbi
SUMMARY: "Thirty-three," she sighs, looking up at the ceiling full
of pencils. "I cleaned them up once. Do I have to clean them up
again?" "No one said you had to clean them up."
KEYWORDS: Mulder. Reyes. MRR. Mulder/Reyes Romance. M/R/UST.
DISCLAIMER: The X-Files and the characters used in this story don't
belong to me. They are the property of Chris Carter and their
respective creators - simply put, not me.
SPOILERS: Season 9
ARCHIVE: Ask - e-mail me at AmericanPadme@aol.com.
FEEDBACK: Every word will be savored, read, and re-read, and re-
read, and re-read, and re-read to boost my ego... no, just kidding.
Feedback would be nice, though, considering this is my first MRR, and
most likely my last. E-mail me at AmericanPadme@aol.com, let me know
what you think.
RATING: G
AUTHOR'S NOTES: I'm really not a Mulder/Reyes shipper, but you'd
have to be blind if you said there was no chemistry there. Here goes
nothing, folks. To my fellow drippers: have no fear, you're not
losing me. Lika, I hope you enjoy this, because I know the shortage
of M/R fic has been getting to you! "Fortuna Caeca Est" translates
to "Fortune Is Blind."

______________________________________________________

He thinks the first time he really noticed her was when he noticed
her eyes. Brown. So brown. A deep, soulful brown, so unlike the
blue seas of Scully's. Hers are like coffee. Warm coffee. Warm
coffee to warm you up on a cold day. You could get lost in eyes like
that.

He's staring. She knows it. She clears her throat. John's taken
the day off, and Scully's home with William.

Fatherhood wasn't his thing, really. He'd done it out of obligation
for Scully. The child was theirs, but there was still this distance
between them. Something kept them from giving themselves to each
other entirely, and he was fed up of waiting. Too many years of
waiting, too many years of wanting.

He's given up. It wasn't a healthy relationship, anyway. It never
could've been. They were far too dependant on each other, he
realized. She realized it too, he knew. It had been painful at
first.

One might've said Monica and Mulder were far too much alike. And
maybe they were. The fascination he'd felt with her since he first
saw her, though, was only growing. She was the anti-Scully, the
opposite of everything he'd known over the past years. Monica was
ever-the-optimist, not the type to let anyone or anything get her
down, no matter how bad things got.

Monica and Mulder both know failure. She, who promised a father to
find his son alive, and he, who promised himself he'd save his
sister - both broken promises. Both broken promises that they had
begun to pick up the pieces of over the years, but broken promises
that could never be repaired.

Both lost souls that blamed, in part, themselves for the past, but
who wouldn't allow themselves to be consumed by the nightmares of
their pasts. Their optimism makes them who they are. Pessimism is a
foreign concept to both of them. They've both been constants,
touchstones, for others to lean on. Never have they really had the
chance to lean on someone else.

Mulder tosses a pencil in the air, aiming it toward the ceiling, and
it doesn't come back down. Monica looks at him and rolls her eyes.
Although he would normally take this gesture as sarcastic, he laughs.

"Thirty-three," she sighs, looking up at the ceiling full of
pencils. "I cleaned them up once. Do I have to clean them up again?"
"No one said you had to clean them up," Mulder smiles.
"They look rather..."
"Spooky," Mulder supplies, "I know. Guess it can be my
trademark."

Monica shakes her head.

"Agent Mulder, you really are something else."
"Go ahead and say it, just like the rest of them do -- I'm not
something else, I'm Spooky."
"I'm not really into name-calling," Monica shrugs.
"Maybe you're more of a goody-two-shoes than I thought."
"Goody-*two*-shoes?" Monica asks in disbelief. "Me. You think I'm
a goody-two-shoes?"
"You didn't seem like it at first, really, but now you give me that
impression."
"I guess I just rub you wrong, then."
"Actually, you don't rub me at all."
"Ha, ha," Monica says, a smile finding its way across her face
now, "At least I don't stick out like a sore thumb like I did back
in New Orleans."
"You hurt your thumb back in New Oreleans?"
"Cut the crap, you know that's not what I meant," she rolls her eyes
again, looking agitated, though he's perfectly aware that she's
not. "What I was trying to say, before I was so rudely interrupted
was that, at least I'm not the oddball here."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means that you take a pretty good job of that for me. The
attention's on you, not me. You get the questioning glances, the
people thinking *you're* weird as you walk down the hall. Better you
than me."
"Monica, no matter how much of a black sheep you've ever been, you're
not as black as me."
"What's that supposed to mean?" it's her turn to ask.
"Whatever you want it to mean," Mulder says smugly, quite enjoying
the agitation in her brown eyes.
"That's not very fair - " she immediately starts.
"Hey, it wasn't very fair when you said it to me, either."

They regard each other in silence. Some might mistake the moment,
say they're sizing each other up. The truth is, they are just trying
to read each other. So much they don't know about each other,
because they've been lost in the shadows of others.

"Okay, Spooky. Spooky Mulder," Reyes' grin widens.
"Oddball Reyes," he retorts.
"That's not very nice - "
"Well, I didn't expect you to resort to name-calling. I thought you
were more grown up than that."
"Nah, just ask Scully. I never grew up. I'm a kid at heart."
"Interesting, Spooky."
"I suppose. My life story is interesting, though. They could make
it into a movie, and it'd be one of the most action-packed movies
you've ever *seen*."
"I believe it, Spooky. Maybe also one of the most fantastic."
"How do you mean?" he casually leans back and flips another pencil
toward the ceiling.

He didn't throw this one far enough, and it falls back down.

"Shucks," he mutters, bending down and picking it up.
"Little green men? I try to keep an open mind, I really do, but all
of the things documented in your casefiles, well... let's just say,
some I can't see as anything hear rational. It's like you sat down
with some crappy sci-fi book and just sorted through, picking out the
plot that sounded the most interesting."
"Whatever. Don't say that in front of Kersh. And they're *grey,*
not green."
"How would you know that? Have you ever seen one?"
"I, ah, well..."
"Didn't think so."

Reyes leans back smugly, content that she's won their little squabble
for now.

Having nothing better to do, Monica pulls out a Rubix cube and begins
trying to sort the colors on each side. She's just sitting there,
concentrating so completely on that cube, that she doesn't notice
when Mulder gets up from his seat and sneaks around behind her. He
stands behind her for a moment, simply watching her, before he
pounces and steals the Rubix cube.

"If you're gonna play, gotta bring toys to share with the class."
"Hey, that's mine, give it back!"
"You're going to have to catch me first," Mulder smirks and opens
the door, starting down the hall in a brisk walk.
"Why, I oughta..." Monica says under her breath before tearing down
the hall after him. "Mulder! You come back here with my Rubix
cube! It's *mine,* do you hear me?!"

No answer. She's not one to give up, though.

She continues down the hall until she sees Mulder in the distance.
He's standing against Kersh's closed office door, calmly trying to
arrange the Rubix cube correctly. Monica rolls her eyes once again
and starts toward the door, yelling to Mulder that it's her cube and
he'd *better* give it back.

"Agents Mulder, Reyes..." Kersh's secretary peeked her head out of
his office, "I'm going to have to ask you to quiet down, please.
Thank you," she chirped before she closed the door and sat back in
her seat behind the desk.

Mulder stands still right next to Kersh's door now, and Monica
reaches forward to grab the cube. When she reaches for it, he drops
it and grabs her hand. She lets out a small cry of exclamation, but
he looks around to make sure no one's watching before gently pushing
her against the wall and kissing her.

He's wanted to do this for a long time.

She makes no effort to push him away, but instead kisses him back,
enjoying exploring this uncharted territory. When he finally pulls
away, they're both breathing hard.

"What was that for?" Monica asked.
"Distraction," Mulder picked up the Rubix cube. "You were going to
get it if I didn't do something, so I had to create a distraction so
I could get it *after* the distraction."
She rolled her eyes, and he laughed.
"No, actually... Monica, I've been wanting to do that for a long
time."
"So have I, Spooky, so have I."
"You know what the best thing was?" he glanced at her, a lopsided
smile on his face.
"Hmmm?" she holds his hand as they walk back toward the x-files
office.
"No bees. Not to mention the fact that you don't kiss like my
sister."
"Who kisses like your sister?"
"Scully."
"What are you talking about, bees..."
"It's a long story, Monica. I'll have to tell you sometime."

______________________________________________________


--end-- Send flames and feedback to AmericanPadme@aol.com.
I know I said you'd all heard the last of me, but you haven't, not
yet. There's still some ideas I need to get down on paper.