TITLE:   SOLITARY R&R
AUTHOR:  JACQUIE LAVA
RATING:  NC-17
CATEGORY:  MSR
KEYWORDS:  ALTERNATING POV
SPOILERS:  Nope.
Disclaimer: The day CC lets any of this happen between M & S...
well, that'll be the day! In the meantime, this is MY playground!

SUMMARY: Scully's idea of breathing space backfires on her... and
Mulder finds a new, fun 'hobby'...

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I just checked my watch... for about the sixth time in less than
fifteen minutes. I'm not anxious, not at all - not me. To prove
that fact, I just checked it again - approximately thirty-eight
seconds later than the last time I looked.

God, I'm pathetic.

It's not that I missed him; I was very busy the entire time he was
gone. In my opinion, the break away from Mulder did me a world of
good. I had the spare time I so desperately needed... to finish up
small projects; to get together with a few old college pals on the
weekend who'd been in town for an OB/GYN conference - I even managed
to squeeze in a lethal shopping spree at DKNY.

I cleaned my refrigerator. I cleaned my oven. I cleaned my
bathroom medicine cabinet shelves. I cleaned the underside of my
sink... I even bleached the interior of my dishwasher (amazing, since
I regularly forget to bleach my whites). Read two point six books.
Bought all new Lancome makeup, in colors I normally wouldn't be
caught dead wearing - and spent a hot Friday night making myself up
to look like a cross between Elvira and the Vampire Lestat...

I drank an entire bottle of mescal, AND ate the worm. In
retrospect, I believe I accomplished massive alcoholic intestinal
damage to myself as soon as the worm came to rest against the lining
of my abused stomach - about an hour after I tried that Blackout Plum
lip gloss.

But I didn't miss Mulder... not one little bit.

Right, Dana K...

I am truly pathetic. I called him every night that he was gone,
though I knew he'd be unreachable. Of course, he had his cell phone
turned off every day except one - the day he'd already planned on
calling me - so luckily he never knew I called. How humiliating that
would have been...

I finally reached him on a Wednesday late afternoon; the day he was
scheduled to call me - but I got to him first. Moderately
humiliating, I suppose - however, the honey-soaked gravelly voice in
my ear was so much of what I needed, though I refused to admit it -
that I was able to bear up under the shame of finding myself so
needy. It was all I could do to not squeeze myself through the phone
and drip out the other end, all over him.

"Hello? Scully? What's wrong?"

"Nothing... why should anything be wrong? I just wanted to say Hi."

"Oh... well, hi. How's your week been zipping along?"

"Really fast, Mulder; I have so much I need to do and I'm running
out of week in which to do it. I'm having dinner with Mom tonight,
and tomorrow I'm going in to work on that audit you refused to
finalize last month -"

"Scully, leave that alone and have fun, can't you? We're on
vacation, remember? We can finish it when I get back. I thought the
whole purpose of this was to relax and catch up on our personal
lives... isn't that what you wanted - why you decided to do the solo-
vacation thing this time around?"

"Well, I know - but I just thought I'd free up some time and get it
done..."

"No! I want to be there for it; that one was a mess and most of it
was my mess. Really, Scully... we'll catch it next week, and -"

"NEXT week? I thought you were coming home this weekend?"

"Well, I was. But actually I'm having a better time than I thought
I would. Who knew? So I'm staying another week; going deeper into
the canyon. Most of the group's still here; we had one guy flake out
but otherwise the rest of us are hanging tough... no pun there.
You're okay with this, aren't you? I mean, we did talk about two
weeks versus one..."

"No, it's fine, Mulder - really. I have so much to do... two weeks
is better for me, anyway."

"Hey, great! Well, listen... we go into upper Red Rock Gorge
tomorrow, for three days. No service there, so the phone'll be off.
I'll call you when we come down and get back to the station, all
right?"

"Sure. Have a good time, Mulder."

"What, no 'Be Careful, Mulder'??? 'Don't hang yourself on the
cables, Mulder'?? Just 'Have a good time, Mulder'??

"You're a big boy, Partner - have a good time."

The phone clicked softly in my ear, as I put it down and whispered
under my breath, 'Be careful, Mulder. Don't hang yourself on the
cables, Mulder...'

**********************************************

Staring out the window at twenty thousand feet doesn't make the time
speed by any faster. I found this out at an early age - about the
first time in my life I ever flew anywhere.

It was a vacation with the family; with Samantha only about three
and bouncing with irritating repetitiveness next to me on the seat.
For such a little thing, she sure was a seat hog. She sat in the
middle and insisted on pulling the arm up, affording her plenty of
room to crawl over my legs and lean all over my shoulder while I was
trying to look out the window and pretend I was flying by myself, to
some exotic locale - such as Disneyland.

In reality we were flying to my uncle's house for Thanksgiving - the
first and only time we spent away from home, on Turkey Day. I
remember yelling at Samantha at least ten times to "Get off me, you
little Creep!" - incurring the wrath of both my mother and father,
who sat in front of us and quietly fought the entire way to Idaho.
Young as I was at the time, I never zeroed in on the subject of their
quarrel - and after a couple of years of hearing that buzzing anger
just outside any door in our house, I guess I was used to it. I had
more important things to worry about at the moment, anyway - my pesky
little sister, for one. I yelled at her again, and again - and every
time I yelled, Samantha stuck out her tongue and raspberried me,
noisily and wetly.

Finally, the little brat fell asleep... on my lap. I tried to push
her off three or four times but she just clung harder; I looked down
at this tiny yet major annoyance in my seven-year-old life... and she
lay against me with her thumb in her mouth and sticky lashes closed
over her eyes. A sigh, and a damp nuzzle into my neck was all I got
for my attempt to shove her back into her seat... and when at last I
gave up and put my arms around her, trying to make us both more
comfortable... she awoke just enough to press a smacking kiss on my
chin and mumble, "Love Foxxy..." before she crashed completely. I
cradled her in my lap and stared out the window at the slow time
inching by... and smiled at how nice she felt to hold.

I never found anything half so nice to hold in my lap, until I met
and held Dana Scully, for the first time.


I will not look at my watch; no point to it. I know when we're
going to land; the weather has been great and our flight won't be
delayed. I know Scully will get to the airport early and probably
chew nails until the plane touches down safely. For as much as we
have to fly in our line of work, you'd think she would be inured to
it by now... but she worries when I fly alone, and she worries when
we fly together. I have seen her do the white-knuckled thing too
many times, and I just know when she flies alone she has a death-grip
on the seat arms the entire way. I think it must be her sworn duty
in life to worry about me, never show that worry and when she finally
claps eyes on me again she can erase it all by a simple, "I'm Fine" -
when I ask her. And I always ask her.

But I am just as anxious to be on the ground, this trip - because
it's the first time we have been apart since we got together; really
got together... and both of us are still a little shaky about the
'together' thing. The word 'together' means something different to
me, than it does to Scully. At least I think it does... I base this
observation on how I seem to be so much more needy than she is. I
know she sometimes finds my intensity a little hard to take. I can
see it in her face; that initial surprise and wonder, when she
realizes just how focused I am - and she trembles. Just a little, at
first - Scullytrembles that arouse me ten times more than even one of
her kisses. And since her kisses just about flay the skin off my
body... It's a wonder I survive at all.

That first look of hers; the one she scorched my way just a few
months ago - the one I recognized for what it really was, because I
had been shooting similar heat in her direction for such a long time,
but she never seemed to see it the way I intended... that look was
the clincher. It forced me to act upon my impulses, something I'd
kept buried for so long it's amazing I knew what they were. The
impulse to reach out both hands and scoop her up, right off the floor
and so deep inside me that she'd have to breathe through my lungs...
I acted upon that one.

I selected it at random because at any given time, when I am around
my partner, the impulses inside me all clamor for attention. I had
to be very choosy when I finally selected the lucky impulse that
would act out its own little mini-fantasy. She opened the door to my
usual pounding knock; her eyes scraping me up and down - and then
they deepened to the most killer shade of lambent, deep blue... lids
half-closed, pupils enlarged - and her rosy mouth parted on a sound
that was a mixture of whimper, purr and growl. It vibrated in my ears
and rolled over me in a rush that finally settled in the vicinity of
my groin - and with Number One Impulse screaming in my poor ear, I
grabbed... and she came to me so willingly - and we never did make it
out to the movies, that night...

Is it hot in this stuffy cabin, or is it just me? Well, at least
the memory of that night has gotten me closer to my goal... plane on
ground. Me walking - no, running - down the landing straight toward
Scully's waiting arms. A lip-lock to end all lip-locks; two weeks'
worth of Scully deprivation evaporating in one heated, prolonged
tangling of arms, and hands, and tongues...

Okay, enough damage to my overloaded, underloved body! Think of
something else, Idiot... think of the spectacular panorama of the
canyon you just climbed through; the fabulous sunsets and sunrises -
all those early-morning colors of red and gold against a silvery-
mahogany mountain range - the shades so subtly blended, just like her
hair... on the pillows early in the dim light of morning; splayed out
like the sunrise at Red Rock, but twice as glorious...

Oh, THAT worked just great, Asshole! So much for thinking of
something else... my own fault. It's just that everywhere I look, I
see Scully. Small nuances of her, embedded deep within me - it's
just the way it is.

Sigh...

*******************************************

Once in awhile, I lie to myself.

Everybody does it, you know... they lie to themselves. I don't know
why I do it... when I was younger and absurdly idealistic I vowed to
remain true to myself, at the very least. I had decided a long time
ago that with only me to truly depend upon, I should be honest in
this one-on-me relationship. I went forward in a tough world,
determined to stay strong and never say I was fine, when I wasn't.

I wonder how rich I would be this very moment, if every time I said
to myself (or to others), 'I'm fine... It's fine'... I got paid a
dollar? I think of all the times I said to Mulder, for whatever
reason, those very words. With a dollar a shot, I'd have been able
to really sock the money away, all these years. But, in the
meantime...

I spent the weekend and then most of the next week, 'Fine-ing'
myself into two more sessions with a sponge, a scrubber and cleansing
formula - and to add insult to injury I also hung shelf paper. Shelf
paper... God! I had truly sunk very low. A pattern of little
baskets of daisies tied up in Wedgwood blue ribbons... can you
believe someone actually thought up a shade of blue called
'Wedgwood'? Oh, and let's not forget the geese, cavorting in
alternate rows between the baskets... they wore matching ribbons
around their necks. My glasses and plates now have to sit on
something that lame, and it's all my fault. And I refuse to accept
total responsibility for buying it - I'm blaming Mulder, for cuddling
up with jagged rocks instead of me. Obviously the trauma drove me to
choose the tackiest shelf paper in K-Mart.

Well, at least I didn't lie about the dinner with my mother - I
went. Had lasagna and garlic bread. Drank wine. Told her I was
fine, when she asked me how my vacation was faring, without Mulder.
Pretended she believed me. You know... the same old thing. Well,
another lie, another dollar...


It all started with a need to breathe, I think.

At the time I had myself convinced that I was the one with the need.
Days filled with Mulder... evenings packed with the same Mulder, and
nights thick with him as well... it was a lot of Mulder, those first
months.

Granted, it was what both of us had wanted - and once we made that
decision and acted upon it there was no turning back to the way we
had once been. We held hands and jumped in with all four feet - and
waded though the Lake of Relationship with enthusiasm to spare. I
was prepared to give it my all, and Mulder sure wasn't about to be
outdone! Four months of damn near perfect; truly it was. And it's
not as if I needed a lot of extra breath... just a little. Mulder is
so... intense, would be the best word. I thought it really wouldn't
change all that much; the way we dealt with each other - maybe just
another layer... a Mulder-layer. I found out a few things fast,
about Mulder the lover versus Mulder the friend: Mulder the lover is
overwhelming. All that tightly-drawn focus, aimed at me instead of a
case, or a potential profile subject... Yow. And it's not as if he
was constantly in my face, either. Surprisingly, he wasn't. For so
long I shied away from starting anything with him, because I assumed
he'd take up what little personal space I had left, and I'd
suffocate. Well, it wasn't like that... I learned there's a big
difference between suffocation, and voluntary drowning.

Mulder has never suffocated me. I discovered I enjoyed the feeling
of being his world, and found that reciprocal need was a wonderful
thing. For the first time in my life I felt really possessive of
another person, as well. I used to wonder if I had a warm enough
personality to feel any sort of jealousy, for it always seemed as if
it never mattered all that much to me. Other women could look their
fill at my former men, and I really didn't care. But now - I would
answer the jealousy issue with a resounding affirmative.

And yet, being the center of Mulder's existence... well, there's no
room for anyone else, and his focus on me is so glaringly apparent
when we're in the vicinity of other women, it would be comical to me
if I wasn't already pitying them for not knowing what I know about
Fox Mulder, my lover. I see them looking; I'm not that unaware -
they gaze at all his 'hot' spots, just as I used to do, back before I
knew the sort of tactile damage those 'spots' could inflict upon a
body. The first time I caught a woman doing it, I felt a hot flare of
anger unlike anything I had ever felt before - and not only did she
see my fury, she fueled it by flirting. With Mulder - MY Mulder. He
never noticed, however... never even saw it. He was too busy smiling
at me and holding my hand. It was sweet - and I loved the way this
woman shrunk in stature, just a little bit... when she understood how
hopeless it was, for her.

So these days, when I gaze, it's with the eminently satisfying
knowledge that I have personal firsthand experience with said hot
spots and what they do to me, my body and my emotions.

Boy, do I ever.

These women will never know his hands, his mouth... the taut ripple
of muscles underneath all that tanned smooth skin; the strength of
his body contained tightly within caresses which envelop me; so much
bigger than me, yet so profoundly gentle. The selfless willingness
to give all and take very little in return - this is the absolute
best, I think - because I have had my share of selfish lovers.
Well, come to think of it - there weren't that many. Lovers, that
is. But they were all selfish.

So why the need to breathe? Well, I suppose I found myself living
that old adage, "Be careful what you wish for." For someone who'd
had nothing for several years, the bounty I now found myself
receiving was almost too much. I had to shelve some of it, for a
little while. Not smothering and not suffocating, just... more than I
could handle.

Mulder is a concentrator; in everything he does his focus is
unswerving. I've watched that concentration shine through endless
seed-munching, pizza gulping, pencil nibbling... seen him zero in on
a slide, a file, a victim or a suspect. His eyelids stop blinking
and the pupils darken; his gaze narrows, locks in - and I swear
sometimes I can almost see a tiny neon sign flashing on his
forehead... "Concentrator At Work" - that's what it would say. I've
always been fascinated by the whole process.

And then one night he turned it all on me... I still shudder, just
remembering it.

Thinking back, I can't recall any one thing that caused us to turn
to one another, that night. It hadn't been a bad day, filled with
boring meetings and the usual frustration that comes from being in
the basement; "Unwanted" Personified. We were between cases, three
days short of payday; I wasn't hormonal or PMS-grumpy and Mulder had
been very even-tempered all day. No monsters, mutants, idiot fellow
agents poking their usual fun at the X-Files or at either of us...

A normal day. Frighteningly normal... maybe that was it. Maybe
both of us kept waiting for that other shoe to drop. We had a
tentative date planned; as if we hadn't seen enough of each other all
week, we had decided to take in a movie. Hadn't done that in ages.
Egad, more 'normal'... guess I should have seen an omen right then
and there, but I was too excited about actually going to see a
regular movie in a real theater, to really think beyond the
anticipation. I was ready at seven and Mulder arrived at seven-
twenty, looking edible, as usual - but I was used to that, really I
was.

Well, I thought I was... maybe the combination of knowing it was an
official 'date'; seeing him dressed in my very favorite ensemble of
black leather jacket, white tee shirt and gray sweatshirt over those
damn-tight-butt blue jeans of his. Maybe all that and his glasses on
top of it... whatever it was, as soon as I opened the door and looked
at him, it was all over. Every speck of what I was thinking and
feeling must have been on my face and in my eyes, because Mulder
never even shut the door behind him... he just grabbed. Both hands
ended up with a double-grip of one Dana Scully and I squeaked out one
tiny high-pitched, "EEP!", before my blazer-coated chest hit him
front and center, and my fingers latched on to the lapels of his
jacket.

Anything I was planning on saying beyond the 'EEP' got sucked into
that first intense kiss - and I learned what Mulder was like when he
directed all his considerable concentration on me. I barely survived
it... and I could no more have stopped it than I could have stopped
breathing. Come to think of it... I did stop breathing. But I
didn't stop Mulder from kissing me. Ten minutes later, I didn't stop
him from tugging at the buttons of my blouse and I didn't stop him
from burying that amazing mouth against my right breast, while his
equally amazing fingers kept its twin occupied and happy... I watched
Mulder concentrate on loving me, and the sight and knowledge of what
he was doing to me, making me feel... God.

After the first few kisses, my mind just about shut down completely
and every nerve ending in my body took over in compensation for the
loss of blood to my brain. It had been a long time for me; for the
experience of this amazing thing called 'sex'... Then I realized,
with what gray matter I had left, that this was not just 'sex'.
Intimacy with Mulder would never just be sex; he wouldn't let it
happen that way. Every touch, every press of him against me... it
told me a story. And like any tale worth the telling, this story
began with a prologue filled with richness - and then the plot took
me over; wouldn't let me go. I wanted it to last forever; I think I
moaned those very words into Mulder's skin at least three times. He
did his damndest to honor my request... with great success. And it
was a long time before I caught my breath.

After having caught it; after long seconds of skin cooling and
heartbeats returning to normal, Mulder let out a shaky sigh and I
felt those sleepy, concentrating eyes of his on me, as he spoke.

"Are you... all right with this, Scully?" The hesitant rumble of
his voice in my ear grounded and stabilized me, as I felt my pulse
return to a semblance of normalcy. I turned my head on the pillow
and let my gaze linger on Mulder's worried face, so close to mine. I
smiled at him and leaned in close enough to send a soft lick of my
tongue along the underside of his jaw; tasting Armani cologne and
smooth tight skin.

"I'm all right with it, Mulder... more than all right. I'm flat-out
in-the-Zone 'Fine' with it..."

And I was - finally, I was.

*******************************************


I ran out of reading material somewhere over Texas, I think - and
it's not dark enough in here to sleep. I could always stare out the
window some more, but somehow I don't think it'll make the time go by
any faster. I wish I'd had a few extra hours to stay in town and
develop the rolls of film I've been collecting. Scully will love
some of these pictures. I DID have a good time; as good as could be
had, considering she wasn't there with me. I tried to stay
unselfish, to not insist Scully come with me. Her cold had been
lingering for several weeks; and mean as it sounds, the last thing I
wanted to do was nurse a flu-infested Scully back to health.
SickScully is truly frightening... and I'll do anything to get her
well again, including sacrificing her delectable company for two
weeks of lonely rock-climbing.

This trip had been planned for two months but luckily the folks who
run the climbing tours were decent about refunding the cost of
Scully's unused portion. It's damn cold in those low mountain areas
of Nevada, this time of year - she would have had a rough trek
through some of the passes. I barely made it at times; whatever gave
me the idea that rock-climbing would be easy? It looked easy, from a
distance... thankfully I was surrounded by experienced climbers who
saved my bacon several times, and were nice enough to not laugh at me
each time I threatened to hang myself on the cables.

By the end of the first week my clothes were covered with fine rust-
colored dust and my gloves were torn up. I had been smart enough to
bring an extra pair. I had red dust in my hair, in my underwear, I
swear... even ate some of it a few times. I was sore, my fingers
were killing me and I had twisted my ankle at least twice. But I
felt great when I finally got to the top of High Point, and looked
down at what I had struggled all day to climb. Rob, our local guide,
snapped a few pictures of me standing proud on that jagged rock, with
probably the most idiotic look of triumph on my face.

My bearded face... I wonder how my partner is going to react to
seeing the beginning of one serious beard, on my face? Jeez, if I'd
known I could grow a beard this easily I would have tried it years
ago! None of us shaved; a few of us didn't bathe either - and I'm
not telling anyone whose camp I followed. Suffice to say that when I
made it back to town I spent most of the last evening there, soaking
two weeks' of grime, sweat and red dust off my body.

But I refused to shave. I like the beard. The beard stays.

I stared at it in the mirror last night; my only actual night in a
decent hotel. The Stardust Hotel, smack-dab in the middle of Las
Vegas Strip... and instead of roaming the streets for a hot slot
machine, I was staring at my beard in the mirror of my hotel room and
trying to imagine what Scully's reaction would be when she saw it. I
ran a hand over it, feeling with surprise the fullness of it. It
wasn't very long; barely a quarter of an inch. But it was nicely
shaped already; no obvious sparseness or gaps. The feel of it was
softer than I had expected; I suppose once the facial hair gets
beyond the stubble phase, it softens up quite a bit.

At any rate, I liked it. I liked the way it made my chin look, and
I could tell when it filled out, that goofy dip on my chin would
finally be hidden. Of course, Scully likes to poke her hot little
tongue in that dip, which not only tickles but is as arousing as
hell... guess she'll have to find another place on my body to inflict
her tongue. The thought of it made me crack a huge grin... Ooo.
Huge grin... against the dark whiskers my choppers looked really
white. Another bonus.

Man, I hoped she would like it... 'cause I was rapidly becoming
entranced with my beard - not to mention the mental images flapping
in my one-track-brain, which gave me all sorts of sweet ideas for the
things I could do to her, using the beard.

Damn, was it hot in here...?

********************************

I agonized for an hour or more about what I was going to wear to
meet Mulder at the airport. Even as I stood in front of my closet
flipping through my clothes, I yelled at myself for being such a...
a... girl. There I was, mature and educated; a doctor and a Federal
agent, for God's sake... fluttering around knee-deep in suits,
dresses and what-not; trying to dress pleasingly for a man. Jesus.
I hadn't stewed like this, about anything, in years. Part of the
problem was the very nature of our relationship; we'd started out in
a place where most couples find themselves after years of marriage.
For seven years Mulder had seen me in formal suits, every day of our
working lives. He'd seen me in jeans and sweats as well... but
mostly he was used to seeing me very dressed-up. It was difficult to
surprise a man like Mulder; never overly concerned with what I wore,
so long as I was dressed and by his side.

Or, more lately... undressed and underneath him.

So, I decided I really wanted to look nice for Mulder, but there
wasn't much left in the surprise department - at least nothing I
could wear in public. And I wanted to look different than I usually
did, around him or around the office. Not fancy; not too casual and
not too stiff. I wanted to greet him looking like a woman... a woman
in love.

And after rooting around in my closet for another fifteen minutes, I
found just the right look; the right combination of outfit. As I
pulled it out and held it up to me, I refused to think about how
silly I had become - how ridiculously concerned I was about the
overall look I would present when I was just fetching Mulder from the
goddamned airport.

Especially when I had been the one to first insist upon taking solo
vacations.

In retrospect, I was rather naive, I suppose. When I made the
initial suggestion, I thought I was doing us both a favor, in more
ways than one. We hadn't been apart for more than a few hours since
our relationship had turned intimate. I thought we both needed the
break. But I'd also just gotten over a nasty cold, and the last thing
I wanted to do was spend a week in the desert, in January, climbing
rocks. Mulder's idea; he'd never gone rock-climbing, and thought a
week in Red Rock Canyon would be great. I didn't - mostly I just
wanted to stay in town and take it easy. It took me an evening of
rational arguing to assure Mulder I'd be fine (that lie again), and
really did not mind him going to Nevada alone.

Besides, he'd already paid for his ticket and registered for the
excursion group; rented the equipment and bought boots... so I took
him to the airport and kissed him goodbye and told him to call me if
he needed to. He walked backward through the gate and waved to me
and I waved back - then I drove home in the freezing rain, and when I
finally got back to my cozy little apartment I lit a fire and put on
one of Mulder's sweatshirts and a pair of his gym socks... and
pretended the next morning that I had not cried myself to sleep. My
solo vacation more or less went downhill from there.

But, hey - my apartment has never looked better. As long as I don't
look in my cupboards at the stupid goosey-daisy shelf paper with
Wedgwood blue ribbons...


I'm at the airport much too early... or am I? Better check my watch
again. I'm wearing something truly unlike me: a black suede skirt
and pale blue sweater. Mulder bought it for me this Christmas; to
say I was surprised when I opened the elegantly-wrapped box - an
understatement. It was perfect and I was floored, by the idea that
my partner would know my secret heart so well when it came to
clothing.

I would never buy suede and cashmere for myself. I couldn't imagine
wearing something so wonderfully textured and luxurious; so
impractical for the type of work we do. And then I remembered that I
finally had attained more of a life than the basement of FBI HQ... I
had another life I could go to after work; an actual life that
involved romance, a relationship - a handsome, sexy man who thought
the earth revolved around me. And I remember the intensity of the
kiss of thanks I laid on the man about singed the hair off his
kneecaps...

His sputtered, "Does this mean you like it, Scully?" was another
understatement. Of course I had to prove to him just how much I
loved my gift - and two hours later, damn near unconscious on my bed
and spread in a large Mulderpuddle all over me... Mulder assured me
in a voice still hoarse and shaky that yes, I must have really liked
it. Third and final understatement, Partner. I loved it - and I'd
not had a chance to wear it yet. He hadn't seen it on me - yet.


Tapping my foot doesn't make the minutes drag by any faster; I
already tried it. I have resisted cracking my knuckles, sliding my
cross back and forth along its chain around my throat and re-tucking
my hair behind my ears. I'm not anxious. I'm not worried he won't
be on this flight; he called me in mid-air, to let me know.

"Hey, Scully... where are you?" I could almost hear the grin in his
voice. I maneuvered through a tricky spot of construction and let
that audible grin mirror the silly one I knew I must have been
wearing.

"In my car, halfway to the airport... where are YOU, Mulder? You'd
better not be calling me to tell me you missed your flight." A
snicker and then a blast of odd static, before I heard his reply.

"... twenty thousand feet; landing in about an hour. You're gonna
get to the airport really early... awww, Scully... didja miss me that
much?" I had to bite my lip to keep from screaming, "YES! I MISSED
YOU! GOD! SO MUCH...!!!" - I swallowed it down and instead replied in
a sane, mild voice.

"Sure, Mulder - I missed you. But I had such a busy two weeks, and
I know you had a lot of fun..." Another chuckle, and then his sigh
floating into my ear; I told myself it was a sigh full of longing,
for me.

"I hope you missed me... more than I had fun, I'd bet. Don't get me
wrong, I had a good time. But it wasn't the same, Scully. I don't
want to take solo vacations any longer... you don't want to, either -
do you?" Uh-oh... was that a note of insecurity I heard in his
voice? I hastened to reassure him as I found myself in the third
traffic jam of the evening.

"No, I don't want that, either! I had a good two weeks, Mulder
(Lie!)... got a lot accomplished (oh, sure - and I have the detergent-
chapped hands to prove it) - I think this was a good thing, I really
do (I am going straight to Hell if I tell another lie) - but I do
want our next break to be together (first truth of the night)..."

"So do I. So hurry up and get to the airport, okay? I've got a
surprise for you..." I smiled into the receiver and fought to keep
my temperance in the face of yet another traffic jam.

"What sort of surprise? You were 'on the rocks' all this time, so
to speak... did you bring me back a piece of the canyon?"

"Yuk, yuk, Scully - nope, no rocks. But I did make this surprise
all by myself..."

****************************************************

One more hour, and she'll be in my arms. One hour to wait until I
can get my Scully-fix. I have been reduced to profiling the
innocuous passengers surrounding me in the stuffy cabin, just to keep
myself amused. Slim pickings for decent profiling, I can tell you...
until I happened to look up and saw the rather odd couple coming down
the aisle toward me; they'd both come out of the tiny closet of a
lavatory... both at the same time. That alone was enough to keep me
happily profiling until the plane landed. Then I took a closer look
at the couple in question... hoo boy. Not your typical species of
human...

Two girls, about nineteen or twenty; identical twins by the look of
them. Actually they were so identical they looked more like clones
than twins, since identical twins still have minuscule features which
are different. But these two... it was scary. White-blond short-
spiky hair and dead-white facial and body makeup; I've seen more
colorful complexions on Scully's autopsy bodies. Thin to the point
of emaciation and dressed in skin-tight black dresses with wide
collars made of some sort of black fur - and they'd had their faces
surgically altered, in some way - because their noses came to an
abnormal point at the very tip, and their eyes had been altered to
have an unnatural, dramatic upward slant. And if that wasn't weird
enough... they wore identical rhinestone-studded pet chokers around
their necks; the chokers were connected to each other by a thin
silver chain. They sat in their seats and repeatedly petted each
other's fur collars. From where I sat I swore I could hear them
purr. I wondered if they were born under the sign of Gemini... I
found it impossible to look away from them... and if they could feel
me staring, they never acknowledged it.

I refrained from thanking them for keeping me so entertained that I
forgot to make the time drag by. For as I sat and tried to decipher
their particular act, and tried even harder not to overly gawk at
them, I realized the flight attendants were asking everyone to take
their seats and turn off their electronic devices and buckle in and
prepare for landing. Almost there...

Hot damn.

***************************************

It lands - finally... the plane, and my fluttering heart. Not that
I've been anxious, you understand... I've only been doing the dance
of a hundred Prevarications, right here in Dulles. Pacing,
tapping... fidgeting and checking my watch; let's not forget that! I
am now intimately acquainted with the second hand movement, and the
quality of its leather band. I force my hand to stop raising itself
to my not-really-anxious eyes, and I instead keep those same eyes
glued to the gate. As I watch and I wait, I tell myself I'm being
silly. I mean, look at the number of times we've been apart, for one
reason or another; spending time alone and not caring all that much.
I tell myself it's just because we've been inseparable for over five
months, and we've grown used to having each other around all day...
all night.

I admit to myself that it's because I am so completely in love with
Mulder that the thought of being apart from him for one more sweep of
the second hand movement on my watch, is driving me nuts.

The doors open, at last. Patience wins out over tapping feet and
cracking knuckles. I tug on my skirt and rearrange the sweater
across my hips, and try to rearrange my features into their normally-
placid, bland semi-smile. But then I see the top of Mulder's head,
coming through the gate, and I can feel the bland stretch into an all-
out grin of delighted happy. His eyes are visible first and they are
looking all around; then as they latch onto me they widen with
mirrored delight - and at about the same time my astonished eyes
register the sight of two very tall, very bizarre 'space-age' twin
women, coming toward me, connected at the... dog collar?... Jeez...
Right about at this time, the Sci-Fi Babes veer off to one side,
moving away enough so that I can see the rest of his gorgeous face.

The rest of his gorgeous, bearded face... wait a minute.

Beard?

A beard... he grew a beard. More importantly, he grew a beard and
left it on; didn't shave it off when he hit the hotel in Vegas. I
stare at him, at the unfamiliar hair blanketing his face. He looks
completely different, yet oddly the same, as if the hair is
intensifying each of his features. His eyes look brighter and his
mouth looks wider. He smiles at me, and I swear even those perfect
teeth of his look more perfect. He looks incredible.

I have never been with a bearded man before... maybe a mustache once
or twice - but never a beard. It looks silky and rough at the same
time; something about the way it feathers around his mouth makes me
wonder just how it would feel... in certain places on my body. I
can't control the shiver that slicks through me at that thought. And
I can't seem to move; my feet have become rooted to the floor. I can
feel my mouth hanging open; if I looked down I'm sure I would see
drool on my new sweater. I stand there waiting for Mulder,
salivating all over myself... then the sea of passengers and
deplaning travelers parts before him... and I get to see the rest of
him from beard to toe.

Good God...

I am dying here. I have never seen him dressed this way, not even
when we roughed it several times, on equally rough cases out in the
middle of nowhere. And if I never believed that outdoor-type
clothes could make a man look sexy... I sure do now.

He's wearing flannel; thick soft flannel that almost looks brushed.
Deep green plaid, shot with black and dark gold; underneath I can see
a black henley which frames his neck and makes his skin look very
tanned. Shirt tucked into a pair of black corduroy cargo pants; snug
around his hips but loose in the legs; the little pockets bulge here
and there with stuff of some sort. Pants tucked into low hiking
boots... the whole look screams mountains and open spaces and lack of
running water. He smiles again at me, a big wide smile of delight -
and those white teeth of his against the new darkness of his cheeks,
eyes sparkling at me... Jesus.

I want to jump his bones right here and now; this very moment...

*********************************

I see her, standing very still in the middle of your average hectic
airport gate area. Scully, looking so gorgeous, as always - but
today it's more intense, somehow. Maybe it's nothing more than being
away from her for two weeks... maybe it's more. And as the bodies
blocking my view dissipate a but more, I can see the rest of her -
and I about spontaneously combust, right in my shoes.

She's wearing the outfit I gave her at Christmas. It's the first
time I've seen her in it, and she looks ten times better than even my
fertile imagination could have imagined, when I first saw it hanging
on the rack and knew I had to get it for her. The skirt is just
short enough to emphasize every sweet curve of her shapely thighs,
and the sweater hugs her breasts so lovingly that I am reduced to
whimpering, just looking at her. She wears cute little black suede
pumps with a thin strap across her ankles and her hair waves all
around her face... and in her eyes I see wonder and heat and for a
minute I forget about the beard; forget everything but the expression
on her face.

Finally I can get through the thicket of people who seem bent on
blocking my way; impatiently push through the last of them and make
it to her side; drop my duffelbag on the floor and reach out with
both hands... much as I did that night about six months ago when I
showed up for a movie date and ended up with so much more. Into my
arms and pressed into my body as close as humanly possible; Scully
fits against me so well you'd think she had been sculpted for just
that very purpose. She smells like flowers and spices and everything
warm and familiar; I bury my face in her hair and let the perfume of
her wash over my starved senses. The crowd jostles us but we don't
care; we stand glued together until a little boy carrying a stuffed
Tweety Bird steps on my foot, and wakes me up to the fact that I've
been pushing my whiskers into her neck, tickling her - and she's been
giggling breathlessly. I pull my face out and stare down into her
overbright eyes, and Scully reaches out a hand to rub against my jaw.

"This is my surprise, Mulder? I like it... a lot. Two weeks away
from me and you come back with a whole new look. Are you keeping
it?" Her voice is deep and a little hoarse, sexy as hell, and her
fingers stroke over my smile; she leans back in my arms as far as
I'll let her, and regards me with serious intent. I move in for that
first, all-important kiss; feeling the softness of her lips under
mine and the tender skin of her cheek. I keep it very gentle; the
last thing I want to do is scrape her skin off with my sandpaper
face. Scully is generous with her response, stroking alongside my
needy tongue with an equally hungry one of her own; then she pulls
away slowly; trailing her mouth over my jaw, her tongue probing for
that goofy dip in my chin. Somehow she finds it and investigates
thoroughly the changes that facial hair can create. For me, the
beard only serves to intensify everything. I shudder as she finally
stops her assault on my sensitive skin, and peers up at me - and I
realize I hadn't answered her question. Am I keeping it...

"That depends on you, Scully. I'm not even sure if I could get away
with it at work - guess I'll have to check current FBI regs. And I'd
only keep it if you really like it, although all the way home I told
myself there was no way I'd shave it off. But I can already see a
red mark on your face -" I touch the spot carefully - "and I'd hate
to scrape you. I think no matter how much I like this beard, I
wouldn't risk that baby-soft skin of yours." Scully smiles against
my hand and rubs her cheek on my palm.

"Well, so far I like it, Mulder - I like the way it makes you
look... but I can see your point, about my skin. I do mark easily -
but I guess we'll never know for sure, until we try it out, right? I
mean, I don't want to just discount the value of facial hair based
solely upon one little red spot. After all," Scully moves in very
close, and whispers her reasoning into my ear, "There may be other,
um... spots on my body - that perhaps wouldn't react so...
colorfully." Her mischievous eyes glitter up at me, as I digest her
words - and my reactionary grin just about cracks my face in half. I
give her one last fierce squeeze, and pick up my duffelbag; sling it
over my shoulder. I twine my fingers through Scully's and tug her
toward the escalators leading to the parking garage - and she has to
run a little to keep up, tossing an amused, "In a hurry, Partner?",
at the back of my head. I don't even waste time in nodding; suddenly
I'm a Man with a Mission.

****************************************

I like the beard. A lot. It's amazingly soft, yet prickly; the
friction it created was very, very... nice. Mulder made sure I got
the full 'treatment'... Boy, did he ever! I barely had enough breath
to inform him of my overall enthusiasm for his new 'appendage'...

Did I mention I liked the beard?

Well, I think I was able to convey my approval to Mulder in a
satisfactory manner; after about the tenth time I moaned it into
various areas of his skin, he finally caught on. I think I have him
convinced of the validity and usefulness of facial hair.

If not, I would be happy to repeat the entire exercise. Twice, if I
have to. It's a sacrifice, to be sure - but I have always prided
myself on being thorough, in my search and finalization of the Truth.
My partner taught me that...

So nice of him, wasn't it?

I lay on my stomach with my face buried into the pillow; still
fighting for enough oxygen to send to my scrambled brain, in the
hopes of persuading my facial muscles to un-cross my eyes. Well,
while I'm recuperating, I may as well replay the last hour or so in
what's left of my mind...

The ride home was interesting; I believe we set some sort of speed
record. Mulder and his concentration, again - except all of it was
concentrated on driving very fast without getting into any accidents
or police confrontations. I sat back and watched him drive;
examining every inch of his new look. From the top of his head,
along the darkened curve of his jaw and down over the rough and
rustic elegance of his clothes... and wishing I had Superman's x-ray
vision so I could see beyond the clothes and delve into the man
himself. Well, I consoled myself with the reassurance that I'd be
doing some delving, in just about five minutes more...

By the time we hit curbside in front of our building, I was so
impatient to get both of us inside that I left my side of the car
wide open, leaving Mulder to stop and lock it up. I tore off through
the entrance with him right behind me (well, I hoped - I was in too
much of a hurry to know for sure); got up to our door and fumbled
with the key and managed to push both of us inside, before either of
us could break the local 'Public Nudity' law.

Once inside, Mulder was the one responsible enough to lock the door,
before he picked me up and flung me over his shoulder. Not a word
spoken until we got in the bedroom; Mulder dropped me on the bed and
I bounced once and landed in a sprawl sideways. I stared up at him
silently; in the dim light of our bedroom he seemed as unfamiliar to
me as he was beloved, and known. The beard really made a huge
difference, I thought... then he whispered in a hoarse, reverent
voice, and his words made me shiver.

"God, Scully... you look so beautiful. I knew you'd look this way;
could picture it in my mind, when I was buying that sweater. I
knew... just how your breasts would fill it out, and how tight that
skirt would fit... how much leg it would reveal." His hands slipped
over the blue cashmere covering me, gently cupping there, then moved
over black suede and traced circles on my upper thighs, just under
the hem of the skirt. He smiled down at me, and added, "You have
never been anything less than everything I have always wanted - and I
missed you, so much..." He leaned over me; kissed me so softly - and
as fiercely desperate as I had been on the drive home, to have him
hard and fast... suddenly I was in no hurry. The feel of his beard
against my face, prickly yet soft as well... so different than
anything I had ever felt. I liked it...

Especially when he trailed it down my neck and over each now-bared
breast (hmmm... when did that happen? I don't recall him undressing
me...); tickled my fluttery stomach with first his left cheek and
then his right... then I felt him draw a heart on me, right over my
damp center, using his chin. I gasped at the incredible feeling,
finding myself drowning in the tender words he whispered to me, eyes
burning up into mine.

"Did you know I dreamed about doing this, every night for two weeks?
I figured I could break in the beard by drawing all sorts of fun
symbols all over you... starting with one of my favorite places."
He nuzzled me gently and then pressed his cheek against me, adding,
"When I'm this close to your sweetness, I can see, and feel - how
much you want me, need me. I can taste it, Scully... I love it. I
love you..."

I was beyond any coherent thought by then, shivering all over and
moaning brokenly as Mulder alternated his tongue and his chin against
my enflamed nerve endings; the hot wetness probing me as the dark
beard created a contrasting friction. So good... so unbelievably
good. I had never felt anything like it. I shook and trembled
beneath him, my hands clenching into the sheets; moaning constantly
and feeling his answering groan muffled against me. And with each
stroke of that beard on my ultra-sensitive flesh, I vowed anew that
if I had to live with whisker-burns, so be it...

At least a few of them would never show.

***********************************

"Can you keep it?" The sleepy, sated voice behind me is still
muffled by her pillow. Scully hasn't moved an inch in almost an
hour; dead to the world and snoring every so often. It was so
cute... she'd fallen asleep holding my hand. As exhausted as I was
I'd found it impossible to let my body relax enough to coax sleep's
usual invasion. Most of the time Scully is the one enervated after
sex; wanting to talk about any number of weird things, while I fight
to keep enough of my brain awake to answer her with more than a
slurry, "Mmrpfh"... I guess this time the face fuzz wore her out. I
stroke a hand over my new beard, thinking about the look on Skinner's
face when I breeze into work the day after tomorrow, with Scully on
my arm and my cheeks loaded with fur. Then I sit up quickly,
thinking past what I want; all the way to what the FBI demands...

Five minutes later I'm thumbing through Scully's dog-eared copy of
the Federal regs.

"Well, Mulder... can you?" I start guiltily, realizing I didn't
answer her the first time. I look down into Scully's half-closed
eyes; she has managed to wriggle herself close to me and her head has
found its way into my cross-legged lap. I smile and shake my head; I
had just found the reg statement when she repeated her question. I
run gentle fingers through her tangled hair as I read the reg, then
sigh and close the book, replying regretfully.

"No beard, Scully. Damn... I was just beginning to grow attached to
it. Figured it'd keep my face warm... now I'll just have to resort
to making use of your cute little muff..." I tickle my fingers down
her body, ignoring her gasping chuckles, and comb them gently through
her soft red curls. Scully sighs and relaxes, pressing an open-
mouthed kiss on my inner thigh; then nestles her face against my
rapidly-expanding flesh; I can feel her smiling on me, and I am
melting from the inside outward. I keep my hand in her curls and cup
her warmly, as she murmurs into me.

"Mmm, you smell so good... feel so good. I missed the smell of you;
I'd go digging for it late at night, but it was too faint on the
sheets. I resorted to wearing your sweatshirt to bed at night;
pulled it out of the laundry before I forgot and accidentally washed
it." I wrinkle my nose at her, remembering the only sweatshirt I'd
tossed in the laundry had about three Sundays' worth of basketball
funk on it. Yuk, Scully... Then I also remember I've done the exact
same thing myself... with her running shorts. Well, I didn't wear
them, exactly; just fell asleep with them next to me on the pillow. I
caress her again with very gentle fingers, as she sighs and continues
murmuring to me.

"So... forty or so more hours, Mulder - until the "Big Shave" - and
I for one will be very saddened by its passage from your face, into
the drain. It was very... talented. But you know - we have some
time... I suppose we could wring every drop of fun out of it, before
you have to 'clean up your act', so to speak." I chuckle down at
her, and give her silky skin a little tweak, before I reply.

"You think so? I've got one hell of an imagination, Partner. I can
come up with some very inventive procedures." I bend down to her
face and spend a few quality minutes kissing Scully's soft mouth,
loving the feel of her against my cheeks. I'm going to miss the
beard, I really will... even though we haven't been together very
long, I'll still mourn its passing. But, I can at least salvage part
of it; the reg does state that a well-groomed mustache is acceptable.
Hmmm... a mustache. I could do all sorts of nifty things with a
nicely-groomed furpiece on my upper lip. But in the meantime, I have
an entire repertoire of beard-frolic to explore, starting with...

"Hey, Scully? Ever been yodeled by a beard...?"


end