"ONE LOVE"
By Rachel Lee Arlington
Arlington@Irelands-web.ie
Please forward to ATXC
Please Archive
NC17
MSR
Spoilers for Gethsemane
Summary: Missing scene from "Pilot". Post season four story. Scully, her
health failing badly, reflects on the first days of her relationship with
Mulder.
DISCLAIMER: Chris Carter and Ten Thirteen Productions own the X Files. Just
like General Electrical owns the power of the electron. Face it Chris, this
thing has gotten bigger than any of us.
CERT: NC17. I object to UST. I object to Unspoken Anything. If you've got
something to say, say it.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Now here's something I never expected to be see. The words
'Arlington' and 'MSR' on the same screen. I fully expect to be stoned in
the streets by the MSR cohort. I'm the vile floozy who not only thinks Scully
is sleeping with someone other than Mulder, I think she's sleeping with
someone other than Mulder and it's *Alex Krycek*.

But the moral of this story (mine as well as Scully's) is that love makes
you do things that are very out of character, because all you care about
is making your lover smile.

So, my deepest apologies to all my little Ratgirl friends. You know and I
know that Alex is Dana's destiny. Mind you, he's Mulder's destiny too. And
Skinner's. And I bet Frohike would just ... okay. Alex Krycek is the dark
eternity in which we all come to rest at last.

But my own angel wants tales of perfect enduring love, of two people who
have silently pledged themselves to each other forever. And I'd do a lot
worse than this for her sake.

For Nina.

* The relationship represented in this story does not necessarily reflect
the views of the management *

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Dana honey, do you have any pain?"

"No, I'm fine, thank you."

"Would you like for me to sit with you a while?"

"No, it's okay. I'm a little tired, I think I might sleep."

"Okay. Well you just buzz if there's anything at all that you need."

"I will. Thank you."

Dana Scully waited till the door had closed before she allowed her smile to
slide and fail. She was in pain alright, but there was no point in worrying
anyone by telling them so. The drugs could blur and soften the pain in her
head, but nothing could stop her heart from hurting.

She turned her head slowly on the pillow, her gaze tracking over the
flowers lined up on the side table and along the window sill. Their colors glowed,
lit up by the afternoon sun. The weather was still holding. Though too tired to
smile, she felt the slow warm turn of pleasure within at the thought.
Perhaps it wouldn't rain again till ... after.

The spell of perfect weather had begun the morning she was called to
Mulder's apartment to identify his body. She could no longer recall his face, his
expression as he lay there dead, in the narrow space between the couch and
the coffee table. But she could visualize perfectly the way the whole room had
been tinted gold by the glorious morning sun.

His funeral, four days later, had taken place on another jewel-like
morning: a high deep blue sky, with only a few small pristine white clouds scattered
overhead, and a sweet breeze stirring the petals of the wreathes.

Her mother had implored her not to attend, telling her, quite rightly, that
she was already exhausted from the strain of the Bureau's enquiry and the
Coroner's inquest. Scully refused to argue, and refused to acquiesce. Her doctor,
knowing her determination, had given her enough painkillers to numb a horse, and
she had sat through both service and burial in a state of drug assisted
tranquility.

Afterwards she had wanted only to be quiet and alone, and Charles had
driven her home. With her head pounding, she had gone to bed, promising to call
her mother in the evening. When the call still hadn't come at eight o'clock,
Margaret Scully had driven to her daughter's apartment, and let herself in
with the spare key Dana had given her from Mulder's key chain.

Dana had been lying on the bathroom floor, conscious, but too weak to even
crawl to the phone to summon help.

She was admitted to Grace Hospital a little after ten that night. By
morning it was clear that her insistence on attending Mulder's funeral had been the
last flare of her strength before it failed her entirely. She weakened visibly,
day by day, almost hour by hour. The TV anchormen assured their audience that
the beautiful weather would last till the weekend. Margaret Scully closed her
eyes at the words. They were making predictions for a world where both her
daughters would be lost to her.

Scully, hearing the same words, had been glad. Happy that his death and
hers would be bound together by these days of sunshine.

She had been warned that her sight might begin to fail, and though she had
in fact been spared this, her hearing seemed to have become unnaturally acute,
as if to compensate for her possible blindness. But this new facility brought
her little joy: conversations held in hushed voices in the hallway outside were
now perfectly intelligible to her, and the grief of those around her was
inadvertently allowed to intrude on her.

For herself, she was quite content. She almost pitied those who had to go
on working and worrying and wearing themselves out, while she lay in this
pleasant sunlit room, with its large window, and the clusters of fresh flowers on
every surface, amusing herself by watching the light change and the shadows move
across the ceiling, waiting for her life to gently falter and fail, to find her
way back into that good place she had seen once before.

The only things that had the power to upset her were her mother's worn
haggard look, and her brothers' awkward gentle frustration in the face of her
dying. And their ... resentment.

"She doesn't even care that she's dying." Her mother's voice, low and tear
choked, should have been beyond her hearing, but even through the closed
door she had made it out. "All she cares about is that she'll be with *him*. She
brought herself to this, going to his funeral. As if he ever did anything
for her. If he'd cared at all he would have ... he would have been here for
her. He could at least have spared her this. But he never considered her, never
thought of anyone but himself. If it wasn't for him ... she might have been happy,
and safe, and well. She might have been married, with her own babies, not here
... "

Her mother's voice trailed off into sobs, and she could hear Billy making
low soothing sounds that didn't quite form words.

That had made her cry. Not much, just a few slow tears that slid from her
eyes into her hair, before she made herself stop, least they should come back
into the room, and see that she was upset.

There had been a moment, before the funeral, when she had considered trying
to make her mother understand. She had almost resolved to sit down with her
and try to explain to her, try to assuage this lingering resentment her mother and
brothers felt towards Mulder. But when the time came, she was just too
tired and too heartsick, and she had allowed herself to postpone the moment. And then
she had just gotten more and more exhausted and ill, and now she no longer had
the strength.

She had told herself that there would be time later, but she knew it wasn't
so. And a voice in her head would soothe her by telling her that it didn't
matter. Her mother had grief enough, and if she could find any comfort at all in
imagining that Dana might have done differently were it not for Mulder,
well so be it. There was nothing to be gained by trying to change her mind now.

The afternoon was turning into deep golden evening. One particular
arrangement, of tiger lilies and peach colored roses, became a perfect gilded fire of
petals and light. Scully studied them. They had come from Assistant Director
Skinner: not delivered, he had brought them himself, and had sat with her and spoken
to her so gently, so kindly. He had asked after her mother and her brothers,
he had been one of the few with the courage to ask her how she was herself, and he
had inquired earnestly if there was anything he could do or get for her.

But all the time the unspoken name had hung between them like a tattered
veil, and at last her eyes had filled with slow bitter tears, and her throat,
closing around a silent sob, had forced her to be quiet. Skinner, seeing her
distress, had tactfully looked away, suddenly interested in the view from her window.

Scully, afraid to blink for fear of oversetting the tears trembling on her
eyelashes, had only blurrily seen the movement of his head, not the tender
concern of his expression; and his action seemed to her a gesture of
denial, a negation of her suffering that went through her like a knife.

The sob trapped in her throat had finally broken free, and her tears welled
out and over her lashes, scalding down her cheeks, followed by others, swift
and heavy. Skinner had looked back at her, and seeing this, had sketched the
motion of getting out of his chair.

"Do you want ... should I call someone?"

"No." She shook her head, despite the pain this caused her, because her
voice had come out so hoarse and choked that she was afraid he wouldn't hear her.

Tentatively Skinner had resumed his seat. He looked intensely
uncomfortable, and Scully knew that he would sooner have faced any danger than have to sit
here powerless before her tears. Somehow the thought of his reluctance to be
confronted with her unhappiness was unbearably painful, as if he of all
people should have been the one to understand. She sobbed out loud, and her tears
fell faster.

"I could have them call someone, your mother. Do you want your mother?"
Skinner offered, hopelessly. He already knew what the answer would be.

"No." Scully turned her head once, re enforcing the quiet vehemence of her
tone.

"If you want me to go ... perhaps you'd prefer to be alone ... " It was
half suggestion, half question.

Scully, somehow unwilling to commit to a spoken answer, had turned her head
again, a slow forlorn gesture. Skinner took a single steadying breath and
set his jaw. He got up from his chair again, and sat down on the bed, lowering
his weight gingerly down by her legs. He took up her hand from the spread,
enveloping it between his broad palms.

"What is it?" He asked, with infinite gentleness. "What can't you tell your
mother?"

The perceptiveness of the question, together with the tender tone of his
voice, seemed to breach some fragile defense within her. Her tears turned from a
stream to a storm, and her breathing broke and tore on jagged sobs.

"I can't ... I can't." Her voice failed, but she pieced the words out
between the tears, between the little gasps of distress. "She thinks ... she thinks
it's all his fault. It isn't, it isn't. He couldn't help it. He couldn't
even help himself ..."

Skinner held his breath, felt his own eyes burning, but he forced himself
to stay just as he was, and even managed a small sound of encouragement, a
sort of wordless 'what else?'

"They think he was selfish ... doing what he did. They think he should have
waited. Till ... till I was dead. They think I would have wanted him here.
They think I would have wanted him to be the one left behind ... " Scully had
turned on her side, curling her body up, one arm wrapped around her waist,
cradling her pain. She twisted her face into her pillow, but then threw her head back
again, and let out a cry of pure anguish.

Skinner, horrified, had told himself that he was doing wrong by allowing
her to become so upset, that he would do better to call a nurse. But even as he
made the decision, she had seemed to reach some emotional resolution. Her breathing
had slowed as she took long deep deliberate lungfuls of air, her tears
stopping. Skinner, still hesitant, had watched her intently, but she continued to
calm, till she looked up at him, red eyed and flushed, and smiled shakily. His fingers
had flexed gently on hers, and he had echoed her brave attempt at a smile.

"They don't understand." Her voice had been husky from crying. "I'm glad.
I'm glad he's dead." Her words had been rather contradicted by the way her eyes
began to brim again, and by the wounded stricken line of her mouth. "I'm
glad he's at peace. Where they can't hurt him anymore. And I wouldn't want for
him to see me ... I wouldn't want for him to be here with no one ... " Her tears
had overcome her again, and she had tried to turn her face into the pillow
again, but Skinner had let go of her hand and lifted her up, taking her into the
circle of his arms.

She had been too weak and too upset to resist, and found herself against
the dark prickly cloth of his coat, with his arms enclosing her, and his big
hands smoothing her hair and rubbing her back. Somehow the sense of being
engulfed in his embrace had been deeply comforting. Something in the sensation of coat
and suit jacket and crisp shirt and silky tie under her cheek, and faint scent
of holster leather and gun oil just discernable beneath the smell of soap and
starch and masculine skin had spoken to her heart, comforting it, telling
it that it really was better this way.

At last she had run out of tears, and when she had grown quiet and sleepy,
Skinner had laid her back down on her pillow. He had brought her a
washcloth from the bathroom, wrung out in cold water, and wiped her tearstained face
for her as tenderly as a mother with her cherished child. He had supported her
head while she sipped some water, then he smoothed the sheet over her, and 
rearranged her cover more comfortably.

Worn out with crying, and comforted at last, she had scarcely been able to
keep her eyes open long enough to acknowledge his farewell. He had shown himself
truly courageous in his parting words to her. Everyone else said things
like 'see you again' or 'see you next time'. Skinner alone had spoken only what
he knew to be true.

"Goodbye Dana. It was an honor to know you. Both of you."

Scully had managed a single perfect smile for him, but she was asleep
before he left the room. She hadn't heard the door close behind him, or the sudden
guttural groan that caught in his throat, tangled with a sob, as he slid
down the wall outside, till he was crouched at the angle of wall and floor,
gasping for breath, struggling for control.

Is that it? He had demanded of himself. Is that all it comes too? After all
this time, after all the intrigue and the treachery, and my soul damned to hell
no matter what I do? Is this what all their plans and schemes and lies were
meant to achieve? A dying woman, crying for a dead man.

Mulder, you were a fool.

Evening deepened into a sun-stained dusk, shadows gathering between the
petals of the flowers. Scully knew that her mother would come a little later, and
she wanted to be able to greet her with clear eyes and a smile. So no tears
now, she told herself. You can cry later, when it's dark, when everyone has gone
home. Then you can go over the parts that hurt. The parts about how they hunted
him and hounded him and would never let him go, just let him be, let him try to
heal his hurts in peace. How they used him and lied to him and took his life
from him, long before he took it from himself.

Her breath was caught against a lump in her throat, and her eyes prickled.
Later, she admonished herself. Think of something else now, something that will
keep the tears at bay. Something that has only comfort in it.

She sought back over her memories, but her thoughts would go no further
than the bittersweet. Now that he was gone, she was sure that he had loved her, but
she could find no memory that contained that certainty. Mulder's feelings had
ever been a mystery to her. Like Mulder. Her lips curled into the shadow of a
smile. That was how it had been, from the very beginning. Her trying to solve the
puzzle of him, trying to find certainty for herself in the chaos of uncertainty
that he created in her.

Right from the beginning ...

*Agent Mulder's insistence of time loss, due to unknown forces, cannot be
validated or substantiated by this witness*

Scully blinked in the sudden darkness, her fingers stalled over the dead
keyboard of her laptop. Her train of thought broke off abruptly, and the
almost acceptable phrases she had arranged in her mind to describe the
evening's events disappeared.

"Oh great," she muttered, as exasperated at the failure of her recollection
as at the failure of the power supply.

She sat in the darkness for a moment longer, trying to trawl her memory for
the words she had decided on, but all she could find were the very images
she wanted to keep out of her report.

Mulder, his face turned up to the pouring rain, water falling in steady
streams off his hair and chin and down the side of his neck, his hands
stretched up to the black and teeming night, whooping with joy. The words
'abductees, people who've made UFO sightings' tripping off his tongue as
easily as if they had made real rational sense.

No, that was definitely not material for her report.

As Scully opened and closed drawers, till she found a couple of large
candles and a box of matches, she reflected that perhaps that was in fact
precisely the kind of report Section Chief Blevins was anticipating from
her. Hoping for, even. She hadn't needed to be told that she was expected to
give the Bureau enough reason to forcibly save Mulder from his own
misguided enthusiasm.

But the fact remained that deaths had occurred, yet no clear explanation
had been arrived at. For whatever reason, the Bureau had relegated the cases to
the graveyard of the X files, and these victims' only chance of a proper
investigation into their deaths was Fox Mulder. So regardless of how
bizarre parts of his behavior were, she intended to stand between him and Blevins'
wrath, at least till they got to the bottom of this.

Lighting the candles, placing one by her bed and the other on the table
to give her enough light to pack up her computer and put away her things,
she turned over the pieces of the puzzle in her mind, hoping to make some
sense of what seemed so random. But the facts of the case and the images
of her strange new associate got tangled up together.

The piece of metal she had taken out of the remains that Mulder still
insisted on referring to as Ray Soames. The dull gleam of it as she
held it up to the light, just before she heard Mulder's knock on her door,
and his bantering answer to her call of 'who is it?'.

"Steven Spielberg."

She smiled at the memory, taking her washbag out of her case, putting it
down on the bed. She might as well give up on anything productive for the
night. She'd take off the rain ravaged remnants of her make up, shower
and go to bed. If today was anything to go by, tomorrow would be a long
and perplexing day.

Peggy O'Dell, throwing herself out of her wheelchair, blood smearing on
her fingers as she clawed at her face, at her bleeding nostrils. The
shock of seeing her mild tentative calm suddenly shatter, when Mulder had
been so quiet and gentle in his remarks to her. The way he had crouched
down, putting his face on a level with hers, the tenderness in his voice as
he addressed her.

Her own quick anger as she saw him lift the hem of Peggy's smock, exposing
those two innocuous little marks. The way he knew exactly where to look,
what to look for. He had never even suggested to her that the marks were,
not a possible cause of death, but some kind of precursor to death. But
his certainty that they would be there proved to her that he had some
understanding of this situation which he was refusing to share with her.

She was thinking of the pictures he had shown her back in the ex copy room
and stationary store that the Bureau glorified with the name of 'office'.
The succession of slides, cool bleached colors and the indifferent eye of
the camera showing her the blasted corpses of young people, clothes and
hair torn about as if by a whirlwind, and all with those same marks, just
to the right of the spine.

She was thinking too of the way she and Mulder had set on each other's
opinions, their voices bordering on sarcasm, but any rancor taken out
by the way he leaned over her, bringing his face close to hers; and by
the way she could barely keep the smile off her face till he had turned
away.

She'd have to take a proper look at Peggy in the morning. The most
reasonable explanation was that the marks were the legacy of something done
to these kids, which later resulted in death. Some kind of a very slow
acting poison maybe. Though all that had been found in Karen Swinson's
tissues was that strange protein. Maybe that was in some way a residue of
something more lethal ...

Scully took up the candle and went into the bathroom, putting her light
down carefully on the splash back of the basin before running the shower.
There was something strange going on, though Mulder's explanation was too
outlandish to be entertained.

She could conceive of someone perfecting the use of some slow but deadly
metabolic poison, and the marks being the sign of its use. But motive? Why
would anyone go to such convoluted and presumably expensive means to kill
high school graduates. She was thinking of the other victims, in South
Dakota and Texas. Was this the work of some exceptionally exacting serial
killer?

As she twitched the shower curtain closed and slipped her robe off, she
told herself that that theory was almost as ridiculous as the one Mulder
had tried to pass off on her. She should wait and think about it in the
morning, with the benefit of some sleep and the light of day to keep her
imagination in check.

She looked in the mirror, noticing how her hair had turned flossy and
curled after getting rained on. The glow of the candle light was polishing
the color, making her natural red gleam through the brown tint she used.
She wanted to be a brunette, it seemed more ... efficient, than her own vivid
shade.

Her thoughts were turning back to Peggy O'Dell. To her sudden outbreak of
panic. Did Peggy, in some vague unfocused way, understand that she was
maybe marked for death?

Scully slid her hands down her spine, arching the tired muscles of her
back. She slipped her fingers inside the band of her panties, moving her hands
outwards to her hips.

The lumps were small and rock hard. As soon as she touched them, they
seemed to leap into life, growing hot, buzzing. She twisted, her breath turning
solid in her throat. Looking down, sidelong along her body, half shadowed,
half candlelit, she could make out one perfect mark, and she was sure she
could see the shadow of the second.

She backed a step away from the mirror, meeting the gaze of her own wild
eyes. It isn't anything, she mentally snapped at herself. Yes it is, the
retort came from deeper inside. It's exactly what Peggy O'Dell has. What
Karen Swinson had. Just like those other corpses. What happened to them
has ... will ...

She snatched up her robe, pulling it on, as if covering the marks would
negate their existence. She tied her belt, smoothed the fabric down over
her stomach. Her sides. Her fingers had a mind of their own. They smoothed
over her hips, into the small of her back. She caught her breath. The lumps
were hard enough to differentiate even through the fabric.

She walked out into the bedroom, looked around as if there was something
there that could make this not be happening. The darkness, tinted only
by the candle on the side table, was pressing on her, slowing her breath,
letting her fear grow at an atavistic rate.

The action seemed to come before the thought. She seemed to have the door
open, and be running barefoot along the walkway before she had decided to
leave. She was hammering on Mulder's door before she had resolved to ask
his help. When he opened the door, his faint polite 'hi' acted as a slight
brake on her headlong rush.

"I want you to look at something."

"Come in."

His expression was like something carefully controlled, an assumed
indifference. She felt intensely unwelcome. She also felt like crying out
the words 'I'm scared! Can't you spare two minutes of your precious time?!'

She was dimly aware of him closing the door, while she steeled herself for
a second. Fear of what he would say making her reluctant to show him after
all. But knowing couldn't be as bad as merely suspecting. She untied her
belt, took two handfuls of the front of her robe, forced herself to lower
it off her shoulders. She felt Mulder move close behind her, the heat of
the candle in his hand radiant on her shoulder. She waited an eternity of a
second or so, then glanced over her shoulder at him.

His eyes met hers.

She gestured with her gaze, down her back, indicating where she meant him
to look. For another instant he kept looking directly at her, something
unfathomable in his eyes. Then he bent down, and she forced herself to
turn her head, looking straight ahead.

She felt the heat of the candle travel down her spine, move close enough to
her skin to make her instinctively stir away from it a fraction of an inch,
though she knew Mulder needed to hold the light close to her to get a fair
look. She forced herself not to flinch as she felt the tips of his fingers
on her skin. She waited, her heart racing and her breath stalled to a
stand still.

"What are they?" She couldn't be still a second longer. "Mulder! What are
they?"

"They're mosquito bites."

"*What?* Are you sure?" She had been counting on his expertise in matters
strange and esoteric. The explanation was turning out to be mundane, but
she still wanted reassurance.

"Yeah, I got eaten up alive myself out there ... "

Mulder's good natured comment got lost as she whirled around, burying her
face in his shoulder. Suddenly so grateful, as if it was his choice that
they were harmless little bites, instead of ...

"You okay?"

She was suddenly painfully aware of how he was leaning back from her, so
that the only point of contact between them was her huddled shoulders
against the worn denim of his shirt, and the hesitant way he laid one hand
on her shoulder, and patted, once, twice, without rhythm, without
conviction.

"Yes."

She said it more in hope than certainty. The implications of her situation
rushed in on her all at once. She'd come to his motel room and shrugged
her robe and then thrown herself into his arms. All for the sake of a few
small mosquito bites. Her eyes prickled as she stepped back from him,
pulling the collar of her robe around her. She ducked her head, knowing
that her face would show how close she was to crying from embarrassment.

"You're shaking."

Something in Mulder's voice changed, turning from mere good nature to real
concern. To her confusion, he moved with her, bending his head, trying to
look into her face.

"I need to sit down."

She was proud of the firm business like way the words came out, just the
faintest suggestion of a tremor behind them. She sounded as if she was
dealing expertly with a simple reaction to the adrenalin jolt of her fear.

"Take your time."

She sat, just in time to avoid having her legs give out under her. Mulder
sat too, on the opposite side of the table. She kept her gaze studiously
ahead, afraid to meet his eye. She wondered rather bleakly how he would act
towards her tomorrow. Would he drop his bantering use of the title 'Doctor
Scully'? Would he refrain from flashing her that dazzling smile when
someone else amused him, as if she and he were in complicity against the rest of
the world?

She wanted them to go on just as they had begun, in friendly ragging, under
scored by mutual liking ... She did like him, crazy as he was ...

Suddenly she realized the wider significance of her actions. She had ended
up here because she had been too scared to think straight. She'd been
afraid that the marks on her back meant ... meant ... even in this moment of self
revelation, she couldn't bring herself to form the words even in her head.

Oh my God, she thought to herself in despairing amusement. He must be
contagious. Twenty four hours in his company and I'm reduced to a wreck by
a couple of mosquito bites. I have got to get a grip on myself, or Blevins
will have us both locked up.

She lifted her hands from her lap, pushing her hair back off her face and
taking a slow deliberate breath, steadying herself. She'd just apologize
to Mulder for disturbing him, and beat a graceful retreat back to her room.

But even as she opened her mouth to speak, the sheer awfulness of what she
had done flooded over her again. This time she couldn't avoid the thought,
it formed in her head instead of the words she should have been speaking to
Mulder. She'd thought the mosquito bites had meant she was going to die.
That something awful and mysterious was going to happen her, and no one
could protect her, except maybe Mulder, with his connection to some
strange secret knowledge and his gentle concern for those who had fallen
through the weave of reality.

Mosquito bites.

She knew it was adrenaline reaction and relief and embarrassment, but she
couldn't stop the sudden rapid flicker in her stomach, the way her breath
started to break up and jerk and jump. She took her hands hastily from her
hair, pressing them to her mouth, then covering her face, the heels of her
palms on her chin and the tips of her fingers on her eyebrows. And all the
time the spasms shaking her got stronger, and she had to struggle not to
throw her head back and laugh out loud.

Oh Mulder, Mulder. I think Blevins fondly imagines that I can wean you off
this nonsense and get you back on track. But it looks like he'll have to
assign someone to debunk me before I can debunk you.

She was peripherally aware of Mulder standing up, the whisper of cloth
moving, but her attention was focused on stifling her ill timed mirth.

"Scully? Scully, it's okay, don't cry."

The words and the touch of his hand on her knee were unexpected enough to
allow her to take a proper breath unhampered by smothered laughter. But
as soon as she attempted to reply, she realized that the only possible
answer, that she wasn't crying she was laughing at how little time it had
taken for her to get as crazed as him, would be less than kind. She flailed
around for something else to say, and her failure to think of anything set
her off again worse than ever.

She pressed her hands to her face as if trying to physically hold in the
laughter, and held her breath, trying to starve it of air at least, but it
got away from her slightly, and her shoulders shook, and she made a funny
little snick of a sound that resembled a sob as much as a snort.

"No, no. Scully ... Dana. It's okay, you're okay."

Like water running over a sloping surface, draining away. Her laughter
suddenly flowing away at the sound of his voice, at the raw distressed
concern of his tone. He took her wrists, pulling gently, and she allowed
him to guide her hands away from her face. Her cheeks felt flushed, and she
knew she had the raw stunned expression of someone who has just calmed from some
extreme emotion.

He was crouched down in front of her, watching her intently. He still held
her wrists as they lay in her lap, and he flexed his grip softly, making a
tiny lift and dip of his head at the same time: a hardly there gesture of
reassurance. He was looking up at her with such tender concern, his deep
eyes glowing even in the candlelight.

Scully had one very certain very clear instant of realization. That it was
time to leave. Right now. Right this instant. There was a very definite
very visible line, and in exactly one second they were going to cross it.

One.

"Are you okay?" He was reaching for her shoulders, having to press his body
against her legs as he leaned forwards.

"Yes." Her right hand faltered upwards out of her lap, her fingertips
grazing the soft washed out gray of his t shirt. Having made the gesture,
she took her hand away again hastily. The haste gave the touch
significance.

For a long instant they remained as they were, Mulder a little off balance,
stretching his arms out to hold her at her shoulders, Scully keeping
her eyes on his shirt. Watching the air between them as it turned to
something warm and charged. When she lifted her eyes to his, she knew what
she would see.

Mulder turned his head, frowning. A refusal, a rejection. He made a small
sound deep in his throat, and when his lips parted, it came out as a sort
of 'no'. But he was standing up, his hands on her arms bringing her with him,
so that she was standing too, letting her head fall back, and as he dipped
his head slightly, leaning down to her, they exchanged one last despairing
glance, as if to say: don't do it.

Scully lifted her chin, Mulder bent his head to meet her. She felt his
breath on her lips, scorching hot, and tasted the musty oily sweetness of
sunflower seeds. They hesitated, their mouths a whisper apart, and their
gaze broke from each other's eyes to flicker over each other's lips. When
their eyes met again, each saw in the look the final offer of quarter.
Mulder almost faltered, but if Scully had communicated with her eyes that
she might still spare him, she hadn't meant it. She parted her lips, her
breath rippling out against the skin of his mouth and chin. It was more
compelling to him then a gun to his head. Out of choices, he closed
the fraction of an inch between them.

First kiss. The first time you know for sure if that mouth tastes and feels
as you imagined it. Though they had scarcely had time to have imagined how
this would be. No long slow building of desire through months and years of
acquaintance, no gradual acknowledgement of mutual attraction, no final
breaching of long held boundaries.

For Scully, it was a step into her own reckless nature, so long controlled,
but never tamed.

For Mulder, it was just too good to be true.

He closed his eyes, letting himself fall into the touch of her lips, soft
skin over full flesh, the faint nutmeg taste of her breath, the cool edge
of her teeth as she opened her mouth to him. He had to lean down to her,
she was so much smaller and slighter, his hands so close together as he
held her arms. He felt a wave of tender protectiveness for this beautiful little
creature, and with it, a slow bitter turn of guilt that stilled his mouth
on hers. He had no business doing this. His lips lifted not quite off hers.

Her small hands twisted into the fabric of his shirt, clasping it up into
her fists, pulling him down to her.

"No." He breathed the word soundlessly against her lips. She felt it.

"Yes."

His mouth was almost unbearably sweet and soft and hot, like the first
bite of a velvet ripe peach picked and eaten in the sun. For a moment he
remained passive under her kiss, neither resisting nor responding as she
gently mouthed his lips, using her teeth and the tip of her tongue on the
soft flesh. Then she pulled harder on his shirt, and although his body
didn't move, he seemed to submit to her strength, in the way he finally
committed to their kiss. His mouth opened, and she felt the pressure of
it against hers, and the slick hot slide of his tongue between her teeth,
into her mouth. The sensation went over her skin like a ripple of heat,
loosening her muscles, so that she was forced to cling to him for support.

She felt his grip move from her arms, one broad hand cupping the back of
her head, so that she could rest the weight of her skull in his fingers,
while his other hand smoothed slowly up and down her spine, echoing the
gentle to and fro of his tongue in her mouth. Scully let herself relax into
the dreamy sensual rhythm of their kiss, her fingers loosening and sliding
on the soft well worn denim she held. She lifted her hands, up to his
shoulders, appreciating the solid curves under his loose shirt, up to his
neck, her fingers glancing through the short soft hair on the back of his
head, then forwards, stroking down along his jawline, cupping his face in
her palms, feeling the slight tang of incipient stubble on his skin.

For a minute longer she held him to their kiss, then gently held him off.

His eyes opened slowly, and even by the low golden light of the candle, she
caught the way his gaze, at first soft and dreamy, flickered over her face
and returned to her eyes, sharpening till he was studying her keenly. His
hands faltered away from her slowly, as if reluctant to leave, but
uncertain of how to stay.

Scully kept one hand on his cheek, her touch whisper light on his skin.
With the other she caught his hand as it dropped forlornly from her hair
past her shoulder to his side. She caught it and twined her fingers between
his. She moved her lips, making some meaningless soundless shape of
encouragement.

She slipped out from between the chair and his body, turning, still facing
him, still holding his hand, moving towards his bed. He hesitated still.
Then, as her arm and his arm reached their full extension, he moved towards
her.

Scully backed up the couple of paces between her and the bed, keeping her
eyes on his face, afraid to break the guiding connection of her gaze,
though as they moved away from the candle on the table she could no longer
make out the expression in his eyes. But then the sidelong gleam of light
from a second candle by the bed showed her disbelief and desire and
reluctance and acquiescence all tangled together.

"I don't think this is standard procedure."

Mulder meant the words to be sharp and sparky. He meant them to break this
strange dreamlike lassitude that was loosening his limbs, leaving him to
follow where she led. But they came out idle and bantering. Scully sat on
the end of the bed and after standing a little awkwardly looking down at
her for a second, Mulder sat beside her, watching as she took his hand in
both of hers. Watching how her two small hands failed to conceal his broad
palm and long fingers.

"Power's out. What else are we going to do? I can't work on my field
report, and you can't do whatever it was you were doing." She was just spinning the
words out, not even paying attention to them herself, just using her voice
to soothe him as she slipped her arm around his neck and drew him closer.
"What were you doing?"

Mulder opened his mouth, but realized that he couldn't tell her. Any slight
hope that he might yet salvage some sanity out of this situation would be
completely lost if he told her that he had been standing just inside the
door, candle in hand, debating whether or not he would get away with going
nextdoor and asking her if she was okay, what with the power down ...

"Oh shit ..."

Mulder breathed the words out in a last despairing farewell to his days of
solitary self sufficiency. He had been so careful to avoid any entanglement
that might distract him from his work. Now this sharp little woman, in the
space of one day, had undone all his efforts. He would dearly have liked to
resent her presence; indeed, he had been ready to do so. But she was too
quick, too smart, too ...

Inside his head Mulder berated himself, telling himself that he was risking
everything, that an indiscretion with his partner was the last thing he
needed. The problem was that for once in his life, his body had decided to
take control of the situation, leaving his brain flailing uselessly. Though
the one really in charge was Scully.

He felt her arms around his neck, and her mouth under his, and knew that no
matter how much he might regret this later, it was still going to happen.
He managed to spare one more second to be amazed that such an intelligent
professional woman, with a reputation for being clear sighted and level
headed, could also be so blithely reckless. Then he quashed any further
thoughts on the subject, and let himself sink into the warm sweet sensation
of her kiss.

Scully sensed the change in him; sensed it in the way he turned his mouth
against hers, the way he took his hand from hers and threaded his fingers
through her hair, tilting her head to facilitate his kiss, then held her
face between his palms. Her lips curled in a small triumphant smile, and
though she tried not to, she couldn't help but make a tiny laughing sound
in her throat, stifled by Mulder's kiss.

Mulder drew back from her, but she knew he wasn't going anywhere and she
didn't try to bring his mouth back to hers. He stroked her face, fanning
his fingers out over her cheeks, his eyes tracking the movement of his own
hands, studying the skin under his touch, as if eyes and fingers were part
of the same sense.

He twisted one finger gently into the lock of hair that had fallen forward
onto her cheek. The glow of candlelight was warming the color, turning it
from russet to something richer and more metallic. Mulder caught the sweep
of her hair between his hands, relishing the heavy cool slip of the strands
over his fingers as he gathered it back over her shoulders. He let it go,
brushing back one stray strand with his fingertip, then returned his hands
to her face. All the time, Scully was studying him studying her.

Mulder traced over her eyebrows with the ball of his thumb, smiling as he
compared the smooth curve on one side with the peaked arch on the other.
Scully closed her eyes as he reached to touch her eyelids, and as he softly
stroked over the fine pale skin he could feel her eyes jump and flicker
under his thumbs. When he took his hands away, she kept her eyes closed.
The sight of her long pale brown eyelashes, resting on the creamy skin of
her cheekbones, with the golden flakes of her freckles underneath them,
made him smile again, and touch his parted lips to each crescent.

When Mulder's lips lifted away again, Scully opened her eyes, watching his
face as he smoothed his fingers over hers, moulding out the fine bone
of her nose, the soft full curves of her cheeks, then the little fleshy
roundness at the tip of her chin. Scully parted her lips, trying to coax
his touch to her mouth. Mulder's eyes traced over the perfect uneven
shape of her lips, but he didn't touch them.

"Kiss me."

She said it softly, but her fingers closed on the front of his shirt again,
as if to give emphasis to the request.

"Yes ma'am."

He obeyed wholeheartedly. When Scully started to lean back, away from him,
the connection of their mouths drew him after her, and when she lay back,
her hair folding and spreading around her on the cover, Mulder went with
her, resting his weight on one elbow, leaning over her, his mouth still on
hers.

Her hands released his shirt, sliding inside it, over the thin fabric of
his tshirt, over his chest and sides, onto his back. Mulder put one hand under
her head, pillowing her in his palm, while the other rather tentatively
rested on her side, his fingers sliding very slightly over the soft red of
her robe. Scully made a long slow undulation of her body, lifting her mouth
harder against his, then as the movement traveled downwards, she stirred
under his hand. A silent encouragement.

Emboldened by her kiss, by the maddeningly slight lift and decline of her
body under his touch, by the warm smell of her skin and the taste of her
mouth, Mulder's hand went down her side, into the curve of her waist, then
back up again onto her ribcage. His fingers brushed over the curve of her
breast, but then returned to her side and stayed there, though his kiss
showed no sign of hesitation.

Scully took her hands from under his shirt, and reached up, her fingers
glancing on his face, his hair, his shoulders, then down his back, stroking
along his sides. Desire making her impatient. His hesitation both exciting
and aggravating.

The intensity of his kiss and the uncertainty of his touch on her waist
were driving her crazy. For a second she debated whether or not she should wait
for him to make the next move. Then she took her hand from his hip, her
fingers rasping over denim, then onto the soft fabric of her robe. She
hadn't tied the belt properly, it came open as she touched it. She had to
lift her hip slightly, pushing Mulder off her a little in order to get
hold of the left side of her robe and pull it open, pushing it off her
skin.

Mulder misinterpreted the way she moved him off her body. He broke their
kiss, drawing back, lifting his hand off her entirely, just as she pulled
her robe out of the way.

"No." The word came out of her with more urgency than she had intended. Her
body snaked, lifting her bare skin against his hand.

Mulder's eyes widened, and his fingers flinched away from her as if her
skin was scorching. Then he put his hand back on her, and she felt the way his
long fingers molded into the curve of her waist, up her ribcage, forward
onto her stomach. She flexed again under his touch, desperate for more.

Suddenly the wild glitter in Mulder's eyes made sense to her. His
hesitation had nothing to do with professional descretion, and even less to
do with any lingering mistrust of her.

Scully put her hand over his, pressing it against her skin. Guiding it
upwards, onto the curve of her breast. She blinked, shuddering a little as
his fingers brushed over her nipple, the sensation barely blunted by the
thin fabic of her bra. But Mulder gasped, and she felt him tense, the lean
length of his body tightening and lifting against her. He closed his eyes,
frowning, holding his breath.

"Oh Christ." He breathed it out. His eyes opened, and his gaze ran rapidly
over her skin, over her face, her cleavage, her stomach. At her hand on his
hand on her breast.

"What is it? What's wrong?" She asked the question, confident of his
desire. Whatever the problem was, it wasn't that he didn't want this.

"I just ... I've ... oh God. I haven't been with anyone for ... an age."

The confession came out of him in a sudden fevered rush, and as the words
left him, so too did his uncertainty.

He shifted his weight easily, lightly, moving on top of her, leaning his
hips down on hers, and Scully couldn't quite stifle a moan as she felt the
solid ridge of his erection pressing into her stomach, sending a sharp warm
pang between her legs, making her rock up against him. And a second moan as
he pushed back against her. For a moment they faltered, moved against
rather than with each other, but then they found a rhythm, a slow lift and decline
that held them together.

For another moment the movement, and the swift glancing touches of hands on
hair and cheeks and shoulders was enough to keep them wideyed and gasping.
Then suddenly Mulder lifted away again. Scully let out a single small cry
of despair, her hands tightening on his arms, trying to pull him back down to
her. But he wasn't leaving her.

His head dipped, and she felt the light brush of his hair on her forehead.
His mouth was on her eyes, her cheeks, her throat, moving with starving
ferocity.

Mulder got his hands behind Scully's head again, lifting her slightly,
bringing her to his mouth. His kisses turned to soft devouring bites, his
teeth leaning and lifting on her soft flesh. The flawless pale skin,
speckled with tiny flakes of gold, the sweet curves and hollows, breathing
a faint warm scent of spice, the fine strawberry blond down that made her
skin velvet under his lips ... Mulder felt like he was losing his mind from
sheer desire. Just kissing her was enough to set his heart pounding and his
nerves buzzing. He was afraid to entertain the idea of where this might
lead to.

He moved down her throat, licking at the notch between her collarbones,
trailing his tongue down between her breasts. His hands slid down from
behind her head, under her shoulderblades, still lifting her to his kiss.
Scully arched up over his hands, eager for this. Her fingers combed through
his hair, shaping out the curve of his skull, lifting the lock of hair off
his forehead so that she could see his face. Then sliding down to the nape
of his neck, down inside the collar of his shirt. She needed to feel his
skin.

Her hands went to the shoulders of his shirt, taking up two fistfuls of the
cloth, as she eased up from under him, into a sitting position. Mulder
moved easily with her, as if their bodies were learning each other. He
knelt over her legs, his weight on his heels. She had to reach up to him to pull
his open shirt off his shoulders.

"Take this off."

He stripped the shirt off, throwing it behind him. Scully smiled,
appreciating the way the solid curves of his chest and shoulders filled his
gray tshirt.

"And this."

She took hold of the t shirt, pulling it up out of the front of his jeans,
but watching his face. Watching his smile, watching the last vestiges of
his uncertainty and indecision give way. He reached behind his head, took
hold of the t shirt and dragged it off in one swift movement. Scully
wriggled her arms free of her robe, and slid her legs out from under
Mulder, kneeling up to face him. The skin of her arms and throat tingled, eager for
the touch of his bare skin.

She put her arms around him, very lightly. Mulder echoed the gesture. For a
moment they were each absorbed in the sensation of the other's skin. Scully
ran her fingers over his shoulders, over a light gold tan, faintly freckled
with chocolate brown. Over the crisp blond brown curls of hair on his
breastbone. Down the fine fair skin of his biceps, onto the tanned skin of
his forearms, over silky brown hair.

Mulder's hands were working very slowly and methodically and greedily over
Scully's skin, his fingertips seeking out every nuance of curve and hollow,
touching the little constellations of pale freckles on the tips of her
shoulders, the legacy of the previous summer. Then down behind her back,
down the long sleek flesh on either side of her spine, down to the small of
her back. They both smiled as he brushed against the hard little marks of
the bites. He spread his hands flat against her, pulling her in closer to
him. They knelt up, body to body, and he bent his head to her. This time
their kiss had a sure certainty, an equality of desire and decision.

Scully felt his hands smooth upwards again, to the back of her bra. Long
dexterous fingers taking up the band and unhooking it with practiced ease.
Scully smiled under his kiss. She was beginning to have her doubts about
Agent Mulder's reputation for chastity.

Without breaking the connection of their kiss, she slipped her bra off,
tossing it away, then arching her body against Mulder's bare chest. They
both made matching little sounds of pleasure, low throaty hums, at the
touch her breasts against his chest. Mulder wrapped his arms around her,
pressing her more closely to him.

"Twins." Mulder murmured the word on her lips, meaning their bare torsoes.

"Not quite." Scully took hold of the waist of his jeans. Slowly and
reluctantly they parted skin from skin. Mulder got his hands to the button
at his waist, but looking down to open it brought his gaze past Scully's
naked breasts, and he lost track of what he was supposed to be doing. His
hands went to her body, softly up her ribcage, cupping each breast. Scully
flexed and stretched, rubbing herself against his touch like a little cat.
Mulder groaned and went to kiss her again. Scully allowed him to do so for
a moment or two, but then held him off, and pulled at one belt loop again.

"Off."

"Oh ... " Mulder made it sound like she was being incredibly unfair and
exacting. He took his hands away from her so slowly and reluctantly that it
was clear he was doing so under duress. And when he had finally broken his
connection to her skin, he moved quickly, clearly anxious to return to her.

He boosted back off the bed, standing up, then hunkering down and pulling
at the laces of his boots. Scully slid forwards onto her stomach, leaning up
on her elbows, her ankles crossed and her feet in the air, watching him.
Admiring the line of his shoulders, and the way the lock of hair over his
forehead flopped forwards as he shifted from one foot to the other, opening
the second boot. He stood up again, and saw her.

"Nice." As he said it he heeled off his boots and pulled off the thick
socks he wore under them.

"Nice too."

Mulder smiled, opening the top button of his jeans. His hand went to the
second button, then he stopped.

"Could you not look at me like that?" He said it with a slight laugh, but
he was clearly losing his nerve.

"Like what?" As she asked, Scully narrowed her eyes and lifted her top lip
on purpose.

"Like you're gonna eat me."

"But I am." Scully laughed and scrambled up off the end of the bed, into
Mulder's arms. They kissed, Mulder's hands trying to make up for the time
they'd been away from Scully's body. But Scully insinuated her hands down
between their bodies and got to the fly of his jeans. Mulder kept kissing
her, stifling his laughter in her mouth as she rather unsubtly yanked
buttons out of buttonholes. She was laughing too.

When she got the buttons open, she got hold of the belt loops on either
side of the waist, waited for a second, then jerked down hard. The soft
washed out denim stripped easily down over narrow hips, her knuckles
brushing over thin soft cotton underneath.

Mulder laughed out loud at the vehemence of her gesture. Scully used the
grip she had on his jeans to turn him, then shoved hard. Mulder fell back
on the bed, taking Scully with him.

"Oh God ... " Mulder was laughing and gasping and groaning all at the same
time as Scully straddled him, pulling his jeans further down, then shifting
her weight to strip them down his legs. He kicked and twisted, helping her
get them off entirely. Scully bundled them up and threw them back over her
head.

She moved over him, lying down on him, and he gasped in earnest as her
body came down on him, pressing his erection between them. His hands closed
on her back, his fingers fanned out over her shoulders, holding her hard
against him.

"Oh God ... you're incredible." Mulder stilled and calmed, looking up into
Scully's eyes, taking one hand from her shoulder to sweep back the curtain
of her hair that hung on one side of their faces. She smiled down at him,
but before she had a chance to make any reply, he suddenly caught hold of
her again and flipped her back onto the bed, lunging over her, looking at
her intently, then kissing her hard.

His hand went down over her stomach, feeling the warm soft flesh lifted
under his palm by her breath, and then again, more powerfully, by the
coaxing lift of her hips.

His fingers encountered the band of her panties. He couldn't help smiling,
though humor wasn't uppermost in his mind. 'This is where I came in', he
thought to himself. The memory of that first stunned jolt of desire and
arousal, of the first sight of her pale skin with the light of the candle
haloing the down on the small of her back, of the feel of her under his
fingertips ... the recollection seemed to be reflected and recreated in the
blaze of desire that fire stormed his head and his body as he slid his hand
under the fabric.

The tips of his fingers moved down over soft curls of hair, moving slowly
and steadily despite the abrupt lift and thrust of her hips under his hand.

Sweet soft flesh, as if she was built without bones. She parted her thighs,
and his hand drifted lower. His body demanding, but his brain mesmerized by
the feel of her. Tentatively, with just the tip of his middle finger, he
touched her.

He gasped out loud, his fingertip suddenly as capable of wringing groans of
pleasure from him as his cock. The sensation of her body suddenly
blossoming in heat and wetness, the way his fingertip was absorbed into blinding
flawless softness. His cock pulsed, a single red hot throb of arousal that
almost drove him crazy. He flexed his wrist, sliding into her a little
further, drawing back, then in again. Into flesh somehow soft and airy, yet
tight and unrelenting.

Scully's hands were on his sides, and her fingers suddenly tightened on
him, and she made a small sharp sound, and he felt her body tense under him.

"Does that hurt? Am I hurting you?" He was being as gentle as he could,
steadfastly ignoring his own desperate hunger, but she seemed so small and
soft, cradled in the crook of one of his arms, her little hands with their
short plain nails almost child like on his skin. All Mulder's previous
experiences had been with tall rangy women, women built on the same lines
as himself, and he suddenly faltered in the face of Scully's little frame
and the almost intoxicating sweetness of her curves.

"No. No, not at all ... " Her voice seemed to flood along his nerves in
just the same way as the texture and heat of her body. She rocked under
him, and the only possible response was to curve his hand more closely over her,
his finger pressing home. She threw her head back, gasping, surging up
against his touch, and he felt the ribbing in the recess of her flesh. The
sensation went up his arm like the buzz of an electric shock, into the back
of his brain, into his cock.

Mulder shifted his weight slightly, turning his hip, bringing his groin
against the side of her thigh, rocking and rubbing himself against her in
a blind hard rhythm that he tried to keep from his touch. But the hot
jagged pleasure that slashed across his nerves each time he thrust himself
against her flesh made it impossible to preserve the slow gentle movement
of his hand. The hard emphatic jerk of his hips spilled over into the
thrust and lift of his wrist, and the building fire in his groin and along
his nerves was further fanned and fueled by the way Scully twisted and
gasped under his touch, arching up against him, spreading her legs further
apart.

Her eyes were closed, her lips parted. She stretched her head back, her
throat exposed, her hair sliding and folding and tangling into curls as she
turned her head to one side, then back again. Mulder closed his own eyes,
the sight of her desire too sweet to bear. He withdrew his finger, but
before she had time to do more than lift her hips in protest, he pressed
two fingertips into the sweet heady wetness, easing into her, his fever of
desire giving way again to a fearful care least he hurt her.

In the darkness behind his eyelids he gave himself up to the meltingly
perfect sensation of her flesh yielding slowly to his touch, gripping his
fingers tightly, then softening, growing hotter and wetter, till he could
move easily in her. Mesmerized wonder gave way to lust sick hunger again
and he thrust his fingers deeply into her, twisting his hips to rub
himself against her, the sensation in his fingertips and the stab of
pleasure in his groin colliding and entangling.

Scully's harsh cry tore his eyes open again, stopped his racing heart. But
even he, uncertain as he was, ready for this sudden dream of heat and
honey and desire to be suddenly snatched away from him, he couldn't doubt
the meaning of her cry.

Reluctantly, with a final slow caressing thrust and withdraw of his
fingers, he took his hand from her, forced himself to lift away from her.

Scully felt his movement away from her as an icy rush of air along the hot
bare skin of her side. Her eyes flashed open in time to see the pale gold
skin of his shoulder as he rolled up from beside her. She reached her hand
to hold him back, to pull him back to her, but her limbs were slow and
loose from desire. He was gone before she could stop him.

She opened her mouth to say something, anything, when she realized that if
he hadn't stopped, she would have had to stop him anyway. Some small part
of her brain still had enough good sense to refuse certain risks.

How was she to get back to her own room, and not have to stay there? Her
brain tried gamely to invent ways of reaching the small pack in the bottom
of her washbag that did not involve her having to put her robe on and stand
up, let alone go back out into the cold and walk to her room.

With heroic determination Scully raised herself up on her elbows, tossing
her head to get her hair out of her eyes. Then she saw where Mulder was.
Standing at the bureau ... the candlelight gliding the sleek lines of his
back and shoulders ... his head bent ... a soft unruly lock of hair slipped
and fell forwards as he turned his head slightly ... looking for something
in his holdall ... the glancing sidelight of the candle picked out the turn
and flex of the muscles at the top of his arm.

He fished something out of the depths of his bag, and turned back to face
her. She caught the glint of foil wrap between his fingers, and fell back
onto the mattress grinning to herself. Looked like she could stay right
where she was. Then as Mulder crawled back onto the bed and back to her
side, something struck her. She rolled onto her side, resting her head
on her hand, leaning on her elbow.

"I thought you said you hadn't been with anyone for a long time." She said
it skeptically rather than accusingly.

"I haven't." Mulder said it easily, guilelessly, then realized that she was

looking at the condom in his hand. "Hey, I'm an adult. I know to carry
them, you know, just in case..."

Scully smiled at his boyish wide eyed expression as he said this. She
reached out and took the package from him.

"Let me do that." She made it sound like an invitation.

Mulder watched her tear open the foil and take out the condom. His heart
started to skip and race all at the same time. His cock pulsed with a far
surer rhythm than his heart. Suddenly, for no reason he could determine,
he felt compelled to tell her the truth.

"There's no 'in case'. That pack of six have been sitting in the bottom of
my holdall for three years straight. There's two missing - I threw them
away. I figure if I ever get killed in the line of duty, and some local fed
has to do the inventory of my stuff ... he'll see a six pack with two gone
and figure..." He trailed off, embarrassment getting the better of the
impulse to honesty.

Scully stopped, condom between her finger and thumb, not sure how to take
this sudden fit of self disclosure. For a moment her curiosity as to what
the demon was that was driving Fox Mulder almost overcame her more
immediate interest in him. But the slick condom in her hand was enough of
a reminder. Time enough for understanding him later.

She moved into the circle of his warmth, her free hand sliding over his
hip, into the waist of his gray cotton boxer briefs, easing them down. He helped
her, stripped them off, threw them away. He rolled onto his back, leaning
up on his elbows, watching with glittering anticipation as Scully straddled
him, leaned forward to his mouth, kissing him, even as she reached down
between her own legs, down to his groin.

The touch of her hands on his cock hardened his erection again instantly,
and when she started to unroll and smooth the latex over him, he groaned
into her mouth and pushed up into her hands, making her task easy. She
prolonged it on purpose, stroking her fingers over him, feeling his heat
and hardness through the tight gloss of the condom, her fingers circling
around his thickness.

He started to rock his hips slightly, thrusting into her hands, his breath
turning into a shallow rapid pant that she felt in her own mouth, as his
tongue stilled and he concentrated on her touch. Finally, reluctantly,
she took her hands away from him, savoring how he lifted his pelvis,
trying to find her again, and how when she broke the connection of their
mouths he stretched his throat, his chin trying to follow her.

Scully moved off him, off the bed, slipping off her panties, glad to be
finally rid of the damp clinging fabric. As she straightened up after
bending to step out of them, she felt his gaze on her skin, a palpable
heat on her stomach and breasts. She smiled, arching her spine a little,
turning her chin into her shoulder, showing herself off, knowing that she
had nothing to be less than proud of.

She moved slowly back to the bed, one knee onto the mattress, then the
other, crawling over his feet, up his legs, biting her lower lip to
stop from laughing in sheer delight. She drank up the sight of his bright
eyes, wide with a potent mixture of excitement and alarm, watching her
come closer and closer. She straddled his hips, leaned down to him, her
breasts a whisper away from his chest, her mouth a breath away from his.
She felt the stir of air on her lips as he inhaled, a slow shuddering
tremble of coolness.

She took hold of his arm, rolling away from him, bringing him with her as
she lay down, propped up on her elbows as he had been. He moved with her,
lying between her open legs, his weight on his hands at each side of her
hips. Scully reached down, closed her fingers around his cock again,
feeling his hardness pulse in her hand, and drew him closer, lifting her hips. Her
body ached and tingled and throbbed in anticipation.

"I can't do this." He froze, not pulling away from her, but not allowing
her to guide him to her either.

Scully, with her fingers wrapped around his rock hard erection and her
pelvis tilted up to him, couldn't control the swift upward turn of one
eyebrow.

"Oh, I think you can." She moved under him, bringing herself closer to him.

She flexed upwards fractionally, and he was close enough for her to feel
his heat.

"No. You don't understand. I can't. I can't ... care for you."

Scully had made a point all her life of never starting something she wasn't
prepared to finish. But at that moment, with her legs spread and her body
melting with pure desire, and Fox Mulder leaning over her, naked and hard
and even more attractive stripped than he was dressed, she had severe
second thoughts.

Oh my God, she told herself in a panic. He thinks I'm going to be expecting
an engagement ring if we have sex. Damnit. Why do they always try to make
it something it isn't?

"I can't be involved. I can't. I won't be able to ... protect you. I have
to be free. I have to."

The sheer pain in his voice made her heart constrict, and the clean sharp
edge of her desire blurred and softened into something less reckless, but
still hungry. She lifted herself the last fraction of an inch, feeling her
body blossoming open. She brought the head of his cock to the slick satin
skin of her vulva, rocking him against her wetness.

"I'm not trying to trap you. You're free. I just want this. I want you."

He didn't resist her, he let her take him that last inch into her, feeling
her body part for him, feeling the exquisite opening of heat and softness,
smoothed but scarcely dulled by the thin latex. But even as his eyes
fluttered closed, enrapt in the sensation of her body, he said, softly
but with still discernable desperation:

"No. I can't."

Scully was struggling for control, trying to keep her breathing even, her
voice low.

"Yes you can. It's okay. You don't have to look after me, I can look after
myself. You don't have to do anything. I'll never ask you for anything,
I'll never get in your way. Just this. I'll never ask you for anything else."

Mulder was sliding deeper into her, his nerves flayed by the combination of
satin softness and fine friction inside her. Some tiny part of him was
aware that they were making a bargain neither of them understood, but he was
also aware that it was far too late to refuse.

"Yes. Yes." He breathed it out, his acquiescence countering his movement
away from her as he drew back, paused, slid into her again, slowly, letting
her body gradually accommodate him. "Just this."

"Just this. I promise, I'll never expect you to do anything for me." Scully
knew that there was a serious flaw in her logic somewhere, to disclaim him
so vehemently when her whole body was straining upwards, aching for him.
He drew back from her again, stilling at the very opening of her, and she
had a sudden sense of loss, and then he plunged back into her, all the way,
and she threw her head back, crying out in final relief. As he moved inside
her, she rolled her head forward again, then looked up into his eyes.

"Yes." She smiled as she said it.

"Yes." He said it with the same intonation. The deal was made: they would
learn to live with the consequences.

Scully put her arms around his neck, pulling herself against his chest,
turning her face into the side of his throat, closing her eyes, giving
herself up to the sweet thrust and slide and plunge, the certain sure
rhythm they fell easily into. Her fingers went into his hair, taking up
soft fistfuls, then letting it go again.

For the first couple of minutes Mulder was too busy trying to keep it
together to really attend to what he was feeling. His nerves seemed
almost overloaded, the stimulation of sight and sound and touch and scent
too much after a starvation diet of porn and masturbation. But after a
moment or two he knew he was going to be okay.

He wrapped his arms around her, holding her tight against him as he
rocked back on his heels, onto his knees, kneeling with her in his lap.
Straddling his thighs gave her more height, brought her comfortably to his
mouth.

They kissed, teeth clashing with the movement of their bodies, a fevered
breathless kiss repeatedly broken as she moved on him, forcing ragged
sounds of hunger and pleasure from both of them. Mulder's hands clawed
into her hair, lifting it off her shoulders, leaving them bare for his
mouth to break from hers and to move over her warm damp skin instead.

He rocked against her, into her, caught up in his own building excitement,
so that at first he didn't realize that her increasing wildness was more
than merely a reflection of his own. He felt her hands sleek down his back,
then the same path traced by her fingernails, then harder, clawing. The
fine silver edge of the pain was a sparkle along his nerves, sharpening
his pleasure. When her hands went to his shoulders, pushing at him, the
sense of her little fingertips biting into his muscles was so good that he
didn't realize what it was she wanted till she hissed at him:

"Down, let me down."

As soon as Mulder started to lean forward again she put her arms around
him, clinging tight to him, and he stayed high inside her as he moved
forward, putting her back down on the bed. He took her in his arms,
burying his face in her hair, his skin drinking up the softness of her
flesh, the fine sheen of sweat on her stomach. Her hair still had the
damp leaf smell of the forest in it.

They moved against each other with increasing desperation. He felt her
body tighten under him, around him; her movements turning savage. His
nerves on fire, his skin alive to every turn of her breath against his
shoulder, he wanted, needed, to savor every second of the experience,
but she was dragging him with her into mindless ecstasy. He felt the
change in her one second before she took her face from his chest,
looking up at him with blazing accusation in her eyes. She gasped,
snatching air, then stilled for a second, twisted in his arms, cried out, a single
hard tormented sound that went into him like a blade. He faltered, almost
froze. She plunged her head against his shoulder again for an instant, then
thrust away from him again, her eyes on fire. This time her cry stopped
him, and his hands, under her shoulders, pressed into the bedcover, as he
at least thought of pushing away from her, certain that he was hurting her
now.

Her flesh, so soft and yielding and sweet, suddenly turning to stone:
strung tight, unrelenting. She looked at him, wide eyed, and her gaze was
white flame.

And then he felt her coming. Felt the shudder, the last hard clench of her
internal muscles turn into a deep flowering pulsing flood of heat that
swept along his own nerves, turning his muscles to pure pleasure, so
perfect and so intense that for an instant he thought that he was coming,
not her. He gathered her into his arms again, holding her against him
though she was still rigid and gasping. He rocked into her, his eyes
closed, his mouth in the tumbled waves of her hair, burying himself in her.

He felt her slacken and soften and her little hands close on his shoulders,
stroking and patting, he felt the tremble of her breath on his skin, a
tearless sobbing of relief and release.

His body was right on the breathless edge of climax, the hovering instant
before completion. And something inside in his head, something hard and
frightened and guilty, something he could no longer hear because it was a
constant part of him, was suddenly deafeningly silent. Still and silent and
at peace in his arms, soft, unbearably soft ...

His climax was a breaking of tears, his body spilling into her, pleasure
and release and fulfillment all words too simple, too mundane, to describe
the almost painful perfection of what was happening him. He arched into
her, groaning, his eyes squeezed tight shut. As the last warm wave passed
away from him, he said softly into her hair:

"I ... " The words wouldn't form, the thought denied before he let it fully
shape itself. To hide his own hesitation, he pulled back a little, so he
could look into her face, and asked:

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine."

He pulled away from her gently, then moved away from her, off the bed. He
went into the bathroom, trashed the condom, refused to meet his own eye in
the mirror. Guilt, consequences, they hovered just behind and above his
head, but he didn't to give them a chance to take him yet. He turned
hastily and made his way back to Scully.

She had curled up on the bed, her knees drawn up to her chest, her arms
wrapped around her body. She looked as small and pale and perfect as a
child. Mulder had a sudden pang, a sense of having, despite all his
resolutions, involved her youth and inexperience in something that could
end up very nasty.

Scully heard him move against the foot of the bed, and she rolled over onto
her back, sat up. Her eyes, still possessed of the clarity of their
lovemaking, saw his thoughts as if they were signs traced in fire on his
bare skin.

"It's getting cold in here." She said it lightly, pulling her robe into
her arms, pulling it on. "You should get dressed, you'll freeze."

She kept her head down, knotting and double knotting the tie of her robe.
She didn't look up again till after she heard the whisper of cloth. He had
his jeans back on, he was pulling his t shirt on over his head, raking his
fingers back through his hair. He picked his shirt up off the floor,
turned to look at her again as he slipped it on. Scully smiled at him
companionably, curling her bare feet under her to keep them warm, as she
said, with the tone of one picking up the thread of a conversation
momentarily interrupted:

"So Mulder. I've been thinking, that thing that happened us, out on the
highway. You didn't seem that surprised about it, you seemed to expect it.
UFO sightings ... is that what you have going with the X files? You really
believe that's what's going on with these kids?"

Mulder took up the spare blanket from the back of the armchair and handed
it to her.

"Here, put this on you, the heat's off too."

"Thanks." Scully put the blanket over her legs and feet, turning onto her
side as Mulder sat down on the floor at the side of the bed, leaning his
elbow on the edge of the mattress.

"You think I'm crazy, don't you?"

"I think you're ... stretching the facts to fit a theory. I'd have to see
something like that with my own eyes before I believed it."

"I'm the same."

"I don't understand."

Scully waited while Mulder sat back, his head resting on the bed. He seemed
about to speak, but still the silence tailed on. Scully frowned, unsure if
she should push it further. But the low hum along her nerves, the memory
of pleasure, reminded her that they had already crossed boundaries tonight.

There was no way back now, and besides, she had no desire to go back.

"What is it Mulder? What's going on?"

"Something ... happened to me. To my family. In the past. Something that
I've always wanted ... needed, to understand. To put right."

"What? What happened? When was this?"

"I was twelve when it happened, my sister was eight. She just ...
disappeared out of her bed one night. Just gone, vanished. No note, no
phone calls, no evidence of *anything*."

"You never found her?" Scully wanted to reach out to him, to touch him, but
she knew only too well that Mulder needed something more than a lover's
concern now.

"Tore the family apart, no one would talk about it. There were no facts to
confront, nothing to offer any hope."

"What did you do?"

"Eventually I went off to school in England, I came back, got recruited by
the Bureau. Seems I had a natural aptitude for applying behavioral
models to criminal cases."

Scully thought that 'eventually' spoke volumes. It was the stuff that came
before the 'eventually' that was driving him, she was sure.

"My success allowed me a certain freedom to pursue my own interests. That's
when I came across the X files."

"By accident?" Scully could hardly keep the surprise out of her voice. She
couldn't believe that anyone would want to trawl through that stuff unless
they had to.

"At first it looked like a garbage dump for UFO sightings, alien abduction
reports, the kind of stuff that most people laugh at as being ridiculous."

Scully willed her face to stay as it was, mild with interest and concern.
She had a feeling this conversation was going to take a turn into the
twilight zone.

"But I was fascinated, I read all the cases I could get my hands on,
hundreds of them. I read everything I could about paranormal phenomenon,
the occult ..."

He tailed off into silence, turned away from her again.

"What?" Her question had an edge to it. Sudden determination. He was so
different from any other man she'd had. He had strength, he had a certain
male arrogance; but there was a flaw in the surface of him, a vulnerability
that she had touched. And now all she wanted was to feel her own strength
in protecting him.

He turned to face her again.

"There's classified government information I've been trying to access, but
someone's been blocking my attempts to get at it."

"Who? I don't understand." Scully wasn't sure she hadn't lost the slight
thread of logic there had been in the conversation.

"Someone at a higher level of power. The only reason I've been allowed to
continue my work is because I've made connections in Congress."

"And they're afraid ... what? That you'll leak this information?" Scully
was vainly trying to make some connection between this and Mulder's pained
account of his sister's disappearance.

"You're part of that agenda. You know that."

Scully at last had a sense of being on firm ground. "I'm not part of any
agenda. I'm here, just like you, to solve this. You've got to trust me."

He looked into her eyes, and she returned his gaze unflinchingly. They were
both thinking of promises made and accepted in the heat of passion. She had
lied to him, she was asking something more of him than the occasional
pleasure of his lean body. She wanted him to accept her help.

Mulder was measuring her. Wondering how much strength and endurance could
be contained in such a small frame. Then he remembered the tensile steel
quality of her little body under his, and it seemed to him a choice between
trust and a return to bitter loneliness. He knelt up, leaning towards her,
his eyes locked on hers. The words rushed out, breaking bonds of self
imposed silence that were time rotted and eager to be broken.

He told her all of it: the strange recovered fragment of memory that had
changed his life. The suspicion he harbored, that there was something
dark and wrong just below the surface of the world, and no one would
speak it.

Scully felt as though she were slowly falling through the mesh of reality.
The combination of the darkness and the constant ripple of the rain on the
window pane outside and Mulder's voice, the shadow of his eyes, were
spinning a web around her where she was ready to believe anything he might
say. She could see it wasn't going to be easy to preserve her own
integrity unless she made a conscious effort to resist his strange
enchantment.

The trill of the phone ringing made her heart



Stop.

"Dana honey? Dana? Dana!"

"Is she asleep?"

"No, she isn't. Call Doctor Shepard, right now!"



She looked at the side of his face, at his eyelashes lowered to the skin of
his cheekbones, the soft flesh at the corner of his mouth. You need me, she
thought. You don't know it, and even if you did, you could never
acknowledge it. But I don't care. You need me, and I'll be with you, no matter where
you lead me.



The End.

Arlington@Irelands-web.ie