Title: Spring-Cleaning 
Author: Girlie_girl7
Email: Girlie_girl74@yahoo.com
Date: 04-20-04
Rating: PG
Category: MS, (no angst)
Spoilers: Anything up to Requiem then AU
Archive: Anywhere
Disclaimer: Fox owns 'em.
Summary: Scully decides to spring clean and
regrettably asks Mulder to help.




                       ~ Spring Cleaning ~


The day dawns clear and bright over Dana Scully's
apartment.  It's a fine day in May to be doing some
spring-cleaning.  Only one thing stands in her way and
that's her roommate, her partner, the love of her
life, and the biggest slob she has ever met, Fox
Mulder.

Scully started digging out rubber gloves, stepstools,
buckets and cleansers a little after 8 AM.  She
decided to dress for the occasion and has on her ratty
jeans and one of Mulder's old FBI Academy T-shirts. 
She hears the front door open and the thud of two,
size twelve, running shoes being dropped to the floor.

Into the kitchen walks Mulder wiping the sweat off his
forehead with the bottom of his tank top.  He had
decided not to wear his pull away running pants this
warm morning and instead chose to wear his trunks, a
sight that does not go unnoticed by Scully.

"Hey Scully, what's with all the mess?"  Mulder asks
as he looks around the room.

"This mess, as you call it, is my cleaning supplies
and we are going to do some spring-cleaning."

"We?" Mulder weakly asks.

"Yes, and now that we co-habitate you can help me."

"You make it sound so romantic Scully," Mulder laughs.

"Romantic or not, I need you to help me."

"Can I grab a shower first?"  Mulder questions after
he pulls his shirt over his head.

"You can but you're just going to get all sweaty
again."

He grabs Scully around the waist from behind and
whispers in her ear, "But I love getting sweaty with
you."

Scully turns in his arms and looks up into his eyes. 
"Mulder I can just about guarantee that you won't like
it this time."

Mulder releases her and plods off toward the bathroom.
 Scully swears she can hear him whine.

--

Scully is cleaning out her kitchen cupboards and
wiping down the shelves when Mulder comes in from his
rather extended shower.  "Sure you're all clean there,
Mulder?"

Mulder looks sheepish as he digs some soap out from
behind his ear then leaps over to where Scully is
trying to reach a china bowl on the top shelf. 
"Scully, let me get that down for you, you're gonna
kill yourself."

Scully steps off the stepstool to allow Mulder to use
it.  "Okay, just set the dishes on the counter, wipe
off the shelf with this rag and put them back.  Think
you can handle that?"

"Piece o'cake," Mulder laughs.

"Good then I'll start working on the hall closet,"
Scully says as she turns to leave the kitchen. 

The hall closet should be declared a disaster area. 
Mulder has decided he will make it his own, the minute
Scully pulls it open a shower of sporting equipment
rains down upon her with her head taking a
particularly nasty serve from a tennis racquet.  
While she stands there massaging the bump on her head
the sound of a loud crash and the breaking of china
can be heard coming from the kitchen.

Scully races in to find Mulder holding two pieces of a
plate.  "Mulder what on earth was that?"  He doesn't
need to answer; she can see broken plates everywhere.

"Sorry Scully, I guess I shouldn't have tried to
balance one stack on my knee while I got the other one
down."  He looks around contritely, "I hope these
weren't expensive."

"No, they were just some old dishes my great
grandmother gave me but the important thing is you're
okay," she says patting his knee while he sits on the
counter.  "Why don't you go work on the hall closet,
you seem to have taken it over anyway," she smiles.

He hops off the counter. "Will do!"



Scully sweeps up the last of her antique china and
empties the dustpan into the trash.  "Scully I don't
seem to have enough room in this closet, would you
mind if I put my baseball gear in your linen closet?"

Scully peeks around from the kitchen.  "As long as
they're on the floor, it's okay."

"And what about my lacrosse equipment," Mulder yells
back.

Scully frowns and puts her hands on her hips. 
"Mulder, since when do you play lacrosse?"

"I don't but you never know when someone might ask me
to play," he yells from the back of the hall closet.

Scully sighs and rubs her forehead.  "Yeah, your
lacrosse equipment can go there too."  She returns to
cleaning her cupboards and finally gets the last one
finished when she notices an awful lot of quiet coming
from the rest of the apartment.  She walks into the
bathroom to find Mulder sitting on the stool lid
reading a magazine.  "I thought you got rid of all
those," she muses.

"What?" Mulder looks up surprised.  "No, this is an
old Sports Illustrated.  I was reading the MLB RBI
stats for 1989, it was a bad year for RBI's."

Scully looks around the room.  "Mulder, you're no
closer to having this stuff put away than you were an
hour ago.  Look, let me finish this up and you go
strip the bed and I'll bring you some clean sheets."

"Anything for you Scully," Mulder says giving her a
peck on the nose.

"I'm sure," Scully mumbles as she begins to shove
various bats and balls into her linen closet.  She
manages to get all of Mulder's things crammed in and
pulls out a set of clean sheets.  She walks into the
bedroom to find he has stripped the bed but he's
nowhere to be seen.  She finds him stripping the
sheets off the guest bed.  Scully leans against the
doorframe and crosses her arms.  "Mulder, what are you
doing?"

He wads the sheets and blankets up into a huge ball
and tosses them onto the floor.  "I thought I might as
well change these sheets too while I was at it."

Scully runs her tongue around her bottom lip then
scratches the back of her head.  "I just changed this
bed two days ago."

Mulder looks at the pile of bedding now lying in the
middle of the floor and gets a silly grin on his face.
 "Then I guess I should put these back on."

Scully moves away from the door.  "Mulder, why don't
you try putting the screens in the windows.  They're
sitting beside the wastebasket in the living room and
my tool box is under the kitchen sink."

"Eww I love a woman who packs her own tools," he grins
then adds, "Screens I can do!"  He leaves the bedroom
in search of the toolbox.  Scully drops her hands and
shakes her head.

--

Two freshly made beds later, Scully wanders into the
living room to find Mulder sitting on the windowsill
with his legs inside the living room as he waves at
her through the glass.  She frowns and walks over to
where he is perched.  "Mulder, what are you doing out
there?"

Mulder starts to duck his head to crawl inside, Scully
puts out both hands to stop him but it's too late. A
big bang is heard as Mulder hits his head on the edge
of the window frame.  

Scully grabs his hand to help him in.  "Oh Mulder! 
Let me see what you have done," she sympathetically
says as she picks through his hair to reveal a small
trickle of blood coming from a gash he has received on
the left side of his head.

Mulder is squinting trying to clear the tears from his
eyes and the stars from his head.  Scully pats his
hand.  "It's okay to cry, that had to hurt.  I'm going
to get my medical bag and an ice pack.  Can you make
it to the couch or do you need my help?"

Mulder sits on the sill for a few more moments.  "No,
I'll be okay."

Scully leaves to gather up her supplies while Mulder
moves to the couch as he grabs a handful of tissues to
stop the flow of blood.  Scully sits down on her
coffee table across from him and gently pulls his hand
away from the wound.  "What were you doing out there
anyway?"  She asks as she works on his head.

Mulder winces at the sting of the antiseptic.  "I was
about to put up a screen."

Scully places a small gauze pad over the wound and
puts the ice pack on top and places his hand on top of
that.

Scully lets him slump back onto the couch then looks
over at the window.  "The screens go on the inside,"
she softly says.

"What!"  Mulder says as he quickly sits forward on the
couch causing his head to spin.

"Easy," Scully warns.  "You sit here while I work on
the screens."

"Scully I can help you," he whines but stretches out
on her couch and grabs the remote.

"Why don't you just lie here for awhile.  I can have
those screens up in no time."  Mulder nods his head in
agreement.

Scully was telling the truth, sans Mulder, she is able
to put the screens up in twenty minutes.  She puts her
tools away and returns with two tumblers of iced tea. 
Mulder sits up on the couch so Scully can sit next to
him.  She shoves the hair away from her sweaty
forehead and sags back into the couch taking a long
drink from her glass.

They sit in silence for a few moments then Mulder
contritely says, "I'm sorry Scully, I haven't been
much help."

Scully smiles.  "That's okay, you meant well," she
says patting his arm.

Mulder takes a sip from his glass.  "I never was very
good at keeping things neat and orderly."

"Something that I have detected after all these years
in that basement warren you loosely call an office."

Mulder smiles at her comments.  "I will try harder to
not be such a slob."

"You're not a slob Mulder, you just don't put the
importance on orderliness that I do.  I don't have
your memory to rely on to be able to remember where a
particular file is in all that mess.  We're just
different that way."

"But not in all ways?" Mulder asks, his insecurity
coming out.

"No," Scully smiles up at him, "not in the ways that
count."

"You think I could get that in writing?" Mulder
teases.

Scully raises from the couch and straightens out her
over-sized Tee shirt.  "I need to get started if I'm
going to finish this today."

"I can still help, after all this is my home too now,
at least temporarily."

Scully smiles up at him, "I'm glad you feel that way,
not the temporary part, but that it's your home too."

"It's like they say Scully, 'home is where the heart
is'."

Scully smiles up at him.

"At least that's what it said on the plaques for sale
at Cracker Barrel."

"Mulder sometimes you should just quit while you're
ahead."

"So what do you want me to do next?"  He asks raising
from the couch.

"Think you could clean the tub?"

"Only if we can test it out later tonight."

"I might be able to arrange that."

Scully brings in her tub and tile cleaner, rubber
gloves, and a stiff brush.  "Here you'll need these
but remember if you feel faint from bending over stop,
okay."

"Got cha," Mulder replies.

Scully leaves her partner to clean the tub while she
tackles the fridge.  She soon has the shelves all out
and soaking in a sink filled with hot, soapy water.

"Scully," Mulder yells from the bathroom.

"What?" Scully yells back.

"I can't get the stain around the drain to come off."

"Well put some muscle into it unless you want me to
come and do it."  Scully hears him grumble an
inaudible reply and has to smile.

She thins out the items from her fridge, tossing out
things that have expired and making a mental note of
those that are about to.
Once all the shelves are back in place she loads the
fridge and closes the door.  Next she grabs a garbage
bag from a drawer when she hears Mulder coughing.  She
puts all the refuge from the fridge into the bag but
still she can hear him coughing.

Growing concerned, she enters the bathroom where
Mulder is sitting on the floor, his lips are blue and
his eyes are drowsy as fumes whiff up from the tub. 
Scully turns on the ceiling fan and opens the window. 
She stoops down next to her partner.  "For heavens
sake Mulder, what did you do?"

He coughs out; "I was trying to make the cleanser a
little stronger so I added bleach to the tub."

Scully helps him up and out of the bathroom.  "Mulder,
don't you know that chlorine cannot be mixed with
household products?"

"Do I look like a chemist!"  Mulder testily coughs.

Scully helps him back to the couch.  "Stay right here
and don't move," she warns him as she heads back into
the kitchen.

He leans over with his elbows on his knees and
continues to free his lungs of the toxic fumes.  A few
minutes later Scully appears with a glass of water. 
"Here drink this, it will help clear it out of your
throat."

Mulder takes a drink then sets the glass on the coffee
table.  He looks back toward the bathroom.  "Think
it's safe now?"

"Don't worry about it, I'll let it air out a little
more then I'll finish it."

Mulder purses his lips and nods his head, slightly
embarrassed by the events of the day.

Suddenly the phone rings, Scully answers it.  "It's
Frohike," she says handing the phone to Mulder.

"Mulder," he says as he sits back onto the couch.  A
frown crosses his face as he glances up at Scully. 
She picks up his glass and heads for the kitchen.  A
moment later Mulder comes in.

"Um Scully, do we have much more cleaning to do?" He
questions as he worries a paint chip off her cupboard.

Scully leans back against the sink, "Not really,
besides I think you should be taking it easy.  You did
inhale a lot of fumes."

"I do feel a little dizzy," he pouts.
 
"Then you should just rest."

He looks down at the floor.  "I could go see the
Gunman, the air there would be cleaner."  Just then he
coughs, to add a dramatic touch.
 
"That might be best," Scully agrees, "but how can you
drive if you're dizzy?"

Mulder is already looking for his car keys.  "What? 
Oh that, I feel much better, I think it was the
water."

Scully tries to keep from laughing.  She spots his
keys on the counter and holds them out.

Mulder looks up and snatches them off her extended
finger and gives her a quick peck on the cheek. 
"Thanks Scully, I won't be long."

Scully watches him leave the apartment then moves over
to peek out the window.  Once she is sure he has
driven away she picks up the phone.  "Frohike, thanks,
I owe you one."

"Promises, promises," Scully hears coming from the
other end of the phone.



                          ~ The End ~