The First Time, Every Time: Eve
Rated X / 2567 words / Posted on AO3 / Tagging @today-in-fic
She feels like a world class idiot, partly due to being manipulated by a pair of homicidal eight year olds. But they managed to pull one over on everyone—including their own parents—so she can’t hold herself too much at fault there. What’s really bothering her is that she knew, or at least had her suspicions, that something was off with the girls, and she let her guard down anyway. She ignored her instincts, and it nearly got both her and Mulder killed.
She sinks down onto the bed in her motel room and rubs her hands roughly over her face, cringing at the memory of how stupid she was. How naive. How uncharacteristically girlish. Allowing herself the tiny thrill of playing house with Mulder while the Eves were under their watch backfired gloriously, and as intelligent as the children are she has to imagine that was their intent. They capitalized on the vulnerability they saw in their adult escorts, stopping just short of directly calling them Mom and Dad, and it had worked so well it almost landed her in the autopsy bay. If a couple of prepubescent psychopaths can see it, it must be fairly obvious that she has a teensy little crush on Mulder. Hell, he’s a behavioral profiler, so it must be obvious to him, too.
It’s not that she has any illusions that something might happen between them, and she honestly wouldn’t even want it to. They’re completely incompatible, and that’s to say nothing for the potential impact to her career were she to act on her urges. But he’s cute, and he only got cuter when he was playing the role of doting father, ushering his gaggle of girls into the truck stop for a bathroom break and a soda. Maybe she flirted a little, and maybe he flirted back, and those damn Eves saw right through them. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.