TITLE: WHITE NOISE AUTHOR: AnubisKV5 E-MAIL: AnubisKV5@cs.com FEEDBACK: Constructive feedback always appreciated! RATING: NC-17! No minors allowed! Shoo! Go away! This isn't for you! (NC-17 is the MPAA copyrighted rating; no infringement intended.) BETA-READER: The wonderful, amazing Aerostar. All other errors are my own. CATEGORY: MT, Angst, MSR, RST. SPOILERS: Biogenesis, Season 6 ARCHIVE: I will post to Ephemeral and Gossamer. All others please ask first. DISCLAIMER: Not mine; I only wish. The X-Files characters belong to 1013 Productions, Chris Carter and Fox. No rights implied. I'm only borrowing them. Some quotes direct from the script, "Biogenesis," and are, therefore borrowed. No infringement intended. I'm not making a penny on this, though I would settle for one-half of one percent of the syndication rights! Also, I am not the same Anubis archived on Gossamer, nor am I AnubisLite. I'm a totally different person, ergo, AnubisKV5. But, you can call me Anubis. ;) SUMMARY: Scully was ashamed of herself, of how she'd treated Mulder: she hadn't believed him about how the rubbing of the artifact was affecting him. He was her partner, her love. No, not just her love; he was her lover -- the man, the person she loved beyond all reasoning. She should have listened and tried to believe him. AUTHOR'S NOTES: Written for the Virtual Season of Smut Challenge - Season 6 at Fandomonium.com. DEDICATION: For Aerostar, ahite? For Xangel and Siggy, for encouragement, kind words and friendship. For AJ, always. ~~x~~X~~X~~X~~x~~ "It began with an act of supreme violence -- a big bang expanding ever outward, cosmos born of matter and gas, matter and gas ten billion years ago. Whose idea was this? Who had the audacity for such invention? And the reason? Were we part of that plan ten billion years ago? Are we born only to die? To be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth before giving way to our generations? If there is a beginning, must there be an end?..." -- Dana Scully, "Biogenesis" ~~x~~X~~X~~X~~x~~ IVORY COAST AFRICAN CONTINENT Dana Scully stood barefoot on the sand, near the shallow tide pool. The wind off of the ocean blew her hair into her face and tangled her long linen skirt about her ankles. She stood looking out at the water. Scully had always loved the water. Despite the heat of this country, the air from the ocean brought a bit of a chill with it, so she wrapped her arms around herself as she shivered. She knew she wasn't only shivering due to the breeze; she was scared to death for her partner, her love, Fox Mulder. She'd taken a giant leap of faith leaving him alone in the psychiatric unit at George Washington Medical Center, with Diana Fowley hovering uncomfotably near, while she left the country and followed the paths of Drs. Solomon Merkmallen and Steven Sandoz. They'd worked on the metal fragments they'd found and had been trying to have them decoded or translated. Neither man could help her because they'd both died violent deaths, and the perpetrators of those crimes had not been apprehended. She didn't expect they ever would. Scully was ashamed of herself, of how she'd treated Mulder: she hadn't believed him about how the rubbing of the artifact was affecting him. He was her partner, her love. No, not just her love; he was her lover -- the man, the person she loved beyond all reasoning. She should have listened and tried to believe him. Scully erroneously assumed he had the flu or some more explainable ailment, but he was insistently attributing his problems to something more paranomal. And she'd, more or less, ignored it. She closed her eyes and remembered the day it had started, when they'd been called to A.D Walter Skinner's office to discuss the new case, view the rubbing and discuss things such as panspermia and the mysterious disappearance of Dr. Merkmallen. After the meeting with Skinner, they were the only two people on the elevator on the way back to their basement office. It was shortly thereafter when things started going bad for Mulder. ~~x~~X~~X~~X~~x~~ "What are we doing, Mulder?" Scully had asked him disgustedly, barely keeping her temper. "This is a police matter at best." Mulder had been busy studying the rubbing, answering her offhandedly. "Skinner wants us on the case." Scully stared at him in disbelief. "Are you going to try and convince me that you have no personal interest in this case?" "I am just a hired gun for the FBI," Mulder replied in his usual flippant, nonchalant manner, continuing to study the rubbing, turning it this way and that. Scully folded her arms and continued to stare at him. "Oh, come on, Mulder!" Mulder looked up at her from the rubbing. "What if there's something to this?" He held up the rubbing to her. She didn't take it from him. "Two men suggesting that we're all Martians," she scoffed at him and nearly told him, to his face, that he was nuts, managed to stop herself, but then added, sarcastically, "Now, why would they possibly come into foul play?" Mulder shrugged and continued to look at the rubbing. "That's what we're being asked to figure out." The elevator stopped at one point in their conversation, she couldn't really remember on what floor, and a number of people got on. She and Mulder moved back to make room. Scully continued talking to him, and when she thought back on it, she should have realized something was wrong at that point. He had a slightly pained look on his face, but she wrote it off to having to share the elevator with others, some of whom undoubtedly would rather be in the Director's office having their asses chewed thoroughly than to be in the elevator with "Mr. and Mrs. Spooky." Mulder *had* seemed distracted at that point, looking around the elevator with a puzzled expression, but she was intent on making her thoughts clear. Scully didn't know it, but nothing she said had been clear to him and had, more or less, fallen on deaf ears. "I don't understand you, Mulder," Scully continued, becoming angry at his lack of attention to her conversation. "You're willing to pursue any case involving aliens, no matter how tenuous the connection. There has to be some limit to your interest ... I mean, this endless pursuit of the truth, Mulder it just ... it doesn't make any sense to me now." At that point, the other people on the elevator bailed, and Scully finally noticed that Mulder had been staring blankly at her. It really ticked her off. "Mulder? Did you hear a word of what I just said?" "No," his voice was very uncharacteristically soft. "No?" Scully's face hardened, yet she was sad inside at his constant refusal to listen to reason, to science. "Well, maybe you didn't want to hear it, Mulder." "No..." At that point, Mulder seemed confused, which Scully hadn't understood. She thought she'd made her case very clear. "I *couldn't* hear it." Mulder handed her the rubbing and stepped off the elevator, heading for his office. Scully paused in the threshold of the elevator doors, glanced at the rubbing and called after him. "Mulder ... look, after all you've done, after all you've uncovered," she hesitated to find the correct words, "a conspiracy of men doing human experiments, men who are all now dead -- you exposed their secrets. I mean, you've won. What more could you possibly hope to do or to find?" Mulder had looked very hurt at her comment and smiled sadly at her, saying only, "My sister." With that, he'd turned and walked away. She remembered being stunned and embarrassed by the realiza- tion that she'd actually forgotten about Samantha. Scully stepped off the elevator, holding the rubbing loosely in her hand, and looked at it, her eyes losing their focus on the object, thinking about the previous evening. ~~x~~X~~X~~X~~x~~ It had taken every plea and threat in her vocabulary for Scully to keep Mulder in the Special Chemical Burn Unit at the hospital in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where they'd been airlifted by helicopter. After all, he'd been underground in the hallucinogenic throes of the giant fungal organism a lot longer than she had. His burns, due to the digestive properties of the yellow slime that had covered them, had been considerably worse than hers. Thankfully, however, neither of them had been exposed to the extent that Wallace and Angela Schiff had, left their stripped, bleached bones in the vicinity of Brown Mountain, near Asheville. Thank God Skinner had brought a team of agents and found them when he had. As usual, Mulder had chafed, literally and figuratively, at being confined. He hadn't had access to his cell phone *or* his laptop for days, and the limited channels on the hospital's cable television were pure anathema to him. Scully's burns had been less serious than his and she'd been released two days earlier, but she knew the only way to keep him in his bed and in treatment was to stay there with him, pretty much twenty-four/seven. Mulder was grumbling again, and had, in his fury, turned off the television and slapped the remote onto his uncomfortablee hospital mattress, making Scully jump and look up from her newspaper. He was glaring directly at her. "I do *not* want to be here, Scully," he said with a growl. "That's only about the seven hundred and fifty-fourth time you've told me that," she reached over and gently patted his hand, then apologized when he winced. "Sorry, Mulder." She stood and leaned over him, smiling. "But you just be a good boy for the duration and you'll get a special treat when we get home." Mulder's eyes lit up and he looked up at her. "Promise?" Scully glanced over her shoulder at the door, then turned back to him and leaned closer, whispering in a low, sexy voice. "I promise to rub..." Mulder's eyes twinkled brighter, "You promise to rub *what,* Scully?" "...the ointment into your burns," she kissed the end of his nose, then sat back down. Mulder's mouth turned down, that gorgeous sexy, bottom lip pouting at her. "Boy, Scully. You sure know how to tease a guy! That's just cruel." "Oh," she picked up the paper, appearing to ignore him, "I'm sure I can think of ... other things ... to rub," he looked at up at him, "which might better hold your attention than even one of those videos that aren't yours. Once we get home, that is." Mulder groaned. And he had groaned even louder -- in pleasure -- several days later when they'd returned home. Skinner had given them a week off in order to facilitate their healing before reporting back to work -- at Scully's medical insistence, of course. Scully had also insisted that he stay at her place so she could help him rub the ointment onto his quickly healing burns, which, in spite of the slight pain, he enjoyed immensely. Once Scully had pronounced him "whole," she hadn't hesitated about "humping his bones," as he liked to misquote, just to get her to do that "eyebrow thing." He found it adorable and sexy, but he'd never tell her for fear she'd stop doing it. At her insistence, he'd been snoozing lightly on her bed, something he'd found was much easier to do with Scully around, while she fixed a light dinner for them both. Mulder came out of his happy dreams of a naked little redhead only to find Scully standing just inside the door of her bedroom, a tray of food in her hands, staring at him, her mouth slack. "What?" he asked. "Have I got something on me?" He looked down and saw only his boxers and nothing else. As usual, he'd managed to toss off the sheets. "Yeah, too much!" she said, her alto voice dropping lower. Before he could look back up at her, Scully was on him like a leech. He never saw her put the tray on the dresser nor, to his dismay, had he witnessed Scully shed her clothes. Suddenly, she was just *there,* on top of him -- naked and hot -- kissing him like there was no tomorrow, biting his lower lip, tugging at it, her hands tugging his boxers down at the same time. It was a weird, little erotic dance she was performing on top of him, but he wasn't complaining. In fact, he was so stunned he just lay there like a pheasant shot out of the sky, waiting for the bird dog to come grab him and break his neck. Mulder laughed to himself. Scully would kill him if he mentioned the "bird dog" analogy. "What are you smiling at, G-Man?" Scully nearly had his boxers off, struggling to get them from around his ankles, and he wasn't exactly helping. "Oh, just thinking about you, *dear,*" he replied. "If I'd had half a clue you were like this, I'd have grabbed you the minute you dropped your robe to show me those mosquito bites on our first case together in Oregon." "If you'd done that, *Poopyhead --*" Scully said, still struggling with his boxers, her tongue peeking enticingly from the corner of her mouth as she attacked her current problem, "-- lift your leg, dammit! If you'd done that back then, Mulder, I'd have shot you a whole lot earlier than I did! And a whole lot lower, too. Then this whole exercise would be pointless." She tumbled aside unexpectedly when his boxers came off his foot. "FINALLY!" Scully sat up near his calves, a wide smile on her face. She was cute as hell as she blew locks of disarrayed auburn hair out of her eyes, waving his boxers in the air at him. For some bizarre reason it reminded him of Brett Hull hefting the trophy the year the Dallas Stars -- of all unlikely hockey teams! -- won the Stanley Cup. But then again, he'd never lusted after Brett Hull, or any other hockey stars for that matter, and he sure as hell didn't want any of them naked in the same bed with him. "C'mere, Scully," Mulder hooked his forefinger at her enticingly, "And we'll spoon like 'baby cats.'" "'Spooning' isn't what I have on my mind, Mulder," Scully replied as she crawled right up his body, stopping only once to give his already-erect penis one long, hot lick before continuing her path north. "What exactly *do* you have in mind, Agent Scully?" Mulder asked, still not moving, other than breathing heavily and trying to recover from the erotic touch of her tongue. "Well, if I have to tell you, Agent Mulder," she leaned over and kissed him, her breasts brushing through his chest hair, their skin touching sensuously, "then two weeks of abstinence have done to your memory what no one else has been able to do." Mulder's arms went up around Scully, his hands sliding up her back to linger at her soft shoulders, then down to grab and squeeze her cheeks, "Well, I distinctly remember a promise you made to me in the hospital ... something about ... 'rubbing?'" He leaned up and kissed her. When they broke apart, she said, "Oh, well, if *that's* all you want, let me get the antibiotic ointment..." Scully moved to get out of bed, but his arms tightened around her like steel bands. "Oh no you don't!" Mulder nibbled on her ear and thrust his pelvis under her. "Now that you've got me right where I want you--" "*Right* where you want me?" Scully asked, moving back slightly, repositioning her damp center on his cock, then grinding herself slowly on him. "Oh yeah!" Mulder closed his eyes. "*Now* I'm right where you want me." Scully smiled and kissed him, his lips parted, and she thrust her tongue home. They both moaned in pleasure, their kiss deepening, driving them both nearly senseless. Two weeks was the longest they'd been apart, sexually, since they'd become intimate several months back. Their lips parted and Mulder looked at Scully with an almost dazed expression. The things she could do to him! "Now. About that 'rubbing'..." Scully gently pushed away from his chest, her hands carefully grasping at his pecs, her fingertips fondling his nipples. When he released a quiet sigh and closed his eyes again under the onslaught, she lifted and slowly impaled herself on his impressive erection. Mulder's eyes popped open again. "Scully!" his cry was quiet but desperate. "Too much?" she asked, stilling herself. "Not enough!" Mulder breathed heavily, reached up and pinched her nipples, knowing that doing so would excite her unbearably and get her moving. "Oh!" Scully dropped her entire weight on him, taking him in completely. Mulder groaned, reached for, planted his hands on her hips and helped her begin to slowly move back up. He tried to keep his own hips still, but it was impossible to do with her, tight, hot and wet around him, trying to ride him like there was no tomorrow. He held her in place and thrust up into her, then with- drawing slightly; he did this very slowly half a dozen times. "Mulder," Scully's eyes were half-lidded and nearly black with passion as she looked down at him. "Please..." Mulder shook his head slightly and bit his bottom lip, trying to keep control, continuing the slow rhythm. Finally, unable to stand it any longer, Scully knew how to make him move: she roughly tweaked his nipples again. "Oh God!" Mulder's hands fell away and Scully took up the slack, raising and lowering herself, grinding against him on each down-thrust. "How's *that* for rubbing?" she asked and paused long enough to lean over and kiss him again, soothing his abused lower lip with her tongue. "Best kind," Mulder replied, his eyes at half-mast, too. He watched her as she continued to ride him, working hard for their completion. Scully leaned forward a bit to increase the crucial contact, and Mulder took the hint, reaching between them where they were joined, bringing his fingers into play. Scully's movements halted momentarily at his lightning touch, her eyes blazed brightly at the contact. She didn't say a word, but her tongue slid between her lips, licking them and arousing Mulder even further. He couldn't hold back and finally let go, thrusting madly into her. At the same time, he reached for her hands and their fingers entwined to steady her as they enjoyed and loved each other in the dance as old as time. With a surprised gasp, Scully came, frozen on top of him, while her muscles milked him to his own climax as his thrusts became uncoordinated. With a sigh, Mulder let go of her hands and reached up to frame her face with his fingers. Scully was flushed and sweaty, strands of her hair wet and stuck to her face. It was, if truth be told, her best look, in his opinion. Mulder gently rubbed her rosy cheeks with his thumbs. "My sweet, sweet Scully." Scully smiled at him, remembering that he'd said that to her after their first time together. "Yes," she agreed softly and leaned down to kiss him, "I will *always* be your Scully." Mulder smiled back at her, his thumbs now stroking her eyebrows. He always craved even more touch from her after making love, if that was possible. Mulder was a *very* tactile man. In fact, he was *so* tactile, Scully had been surprised to discover that Mulder was a "cuddler." In retrospect, considering his level of passion with his obsessions, it really shouldn't have surprised her at all that he'd turn the same passion to his newest obsession: Dana Scully. "I love you, Scully," Mulder told her in a whisper. That particular tone of his voice always made her shiver. "I know you do," she told him and kissed him yet again; something she'd never tire of doing. "And I love you, too, Mulder." Mulder's smile whenever she said that to him would likely always have the power to make her knees quiver. Had she known what a considerate lover he'd be, she might have let him "hump her bones" on that first case in Oregon. Mulder pulled her down against him and stroked her damp back. It was a few blissful moments before either of them spoke again. "Hungry?" she asked quietly, her lips at his ear. They'd forgotten about the dinner she'd made for them and abandoned on her dresser. "Just had my dinner," Mulder chuckled. "You hungry?" Scully shook her head, her hair tickling his cheek. "Just had my dinner, too." "Shower?" he countered. "Maybe later," Scully replied, running her fingers through Mulder's chestnut hair and began covering his face with sweet kisses. "Much, much later..." ~~x~~X~~X~~X~~x~~ Much, much later had never come. They were due back at work on the very next day and that's when Skinner had assigned them to this horrendous X-File-turned-nightmare. Scully sighed deeply, inhaling the ocean scent. Normally, she'd love time on any beach at the water's edge, where her father had raised her to respect and love the sea, to respect the people around her and those she loved. But, familiarity breeds contempt and she was ashamed to admit, even to herself, that for a while she'd forgotten to respect Mulder and his quest, a significant part of which was his driving need to find his missing sister. The problems Mulder had started experiencing -- saying he was hearing voices, hearing the thoughts of people around him -- had caused him serious physical problems. She'd suggested it was simply "white noise." He had, of course, disagreed, accusing her of not believing her. In fact, she hadn't believed him. Scully always tried to explain things away with science or a visit to a doctor, but Mulder had stood firm and refused to go. Instead, he went home to bed and that was the last she'd seen of him until she received an call from Skinner: Mulder had been admitted to the psychiatric unit of Georgetown Memorial Hospital. Diana Fowley had shown up there, and Skinner had slipped, disclosing his duplicity. She didn't trust either of them. Scully shook her head to try to clear it of the maudlin thoughts. Repeating them over and over in her mind would *not* help her partner. She turned to the men nearby. Though she couldn't understand their verbal language, their body language was universal: they were frightened nearly to death. The African man who had been serving as her translator was showing the rubbing of the artifact to several other African men, speaking Swahili. They continued to glance between the man and Scully, fear written clearly in their eyes, but at last they answered him. Finally, he turned back to and approached her. "It's the same," the man told her in accented English. "I'll take you, but they are afraid." Scully said nothing but nodded and followed the men as they lead her to the water's edge. The man who had spoken to her took her to a specific spot, then, also in great fear, left her there. She knelt down and brushed the sand away from a much larger metal plate with what appeared to be Navajo inscriptions on it. The last time she'd seen these symbols was during that terrible time several years ago when circumstances had dicated that she leave him in the care of the elderly Navajo code talker, Albert Hosteen. Not long after her return to D.C., Mulder was reported dead, from an incendiary device thrown into the buried boxcar that she'd come to believe had become his tomb. Mulder had been miraculously resurrected and returned to her whole that time. Scully looked around her and began to slowly stand. She closed her eyes for a moment, took a deep breath, and then opened her eyes again, and looked down at her feet. She suddenly realized the enormity of the moment: Dana Scully was standing on a ship, the very top of which was just visible under the waves. It was nothing like the kinds of ships she'd grown up around, nor the ones her father, her Ahab, had taught his Starbuck about as a young, impressionable girl. Those ships were made of wood, canvas, rope, iron and steel. This ship was something altogether different. This ship was decidedly not of this earth: it was covered with the same strange symbols on the rubbing of the artifact that had so badly affected Fox Mulder. She remembered a lot of things about Mulder, but in partic- ular, her thoughts were on the first and last times they'd made love together before this nightmare had started. In both instances, and all times in-between, their loving had been alternately slow, fast, erotic, sensual, over- whelming in every sense, wild and gently sweet. Mulder had surprised her; the man who chased little green men and government conspiracies -- "Spooky" Mulder -- had turned out to be the most considerate, passionate and romantic lover she'd ever known. He always made absolutely certain she was satisfied most often before he achieved his own satisfaction. Scully remembered every reason she'd ever had to fall in love with him; he had literally swept her off her feet. Their very first time together, he'd picked her up, an arm under her shoulders and the other under her knees, and set off for her bedroom. She'd squealed uncharacteristically and kicked her legs, demanding to be put down. That had only inflamed him to hold her closer, tighter, and his smile was wider, hotter and more promising than when the seduction started. Scully smiled at those wonderful thoughts, then she remem- bered what had happened in the short time since they'd finally gotten it right and told each other how they felt, and her smile faded. Scully reached up and touched the gold cross at her throat. She'd strayed far from her religion in the past six years and she needed it now, more than ever. She needed a miracle. <> She was *so* far away from her love, her soulmate, and she was despairing. Standing atop the unbelievable craft, tightly clutching the simple gold cross her Mother had given her when she was young, Dana Scully closed her eyes, bowed her head and prayed for Mulder. She prayed that her trip to Africa would not be a fool's errand and that something she would do here or find would ultimately help save Mulder's life. She prayed Mulder would be alive when she returned home. Most of all, Scully prayed that her last memory of Fox Mulder would not be the image of him staring desperately at her through the camera from his padded hospital cell, hoarsely screaming the one word he could manage to mutter -- her name -- over and over and over... x~~X~~X~~X~~x~~ "... We burn like fires in our time only to be extinguished. To surrender to the elements' eternal reclaim. Matter and gas ... will this all end one day? Life no longer passing to life, the Earth left barren like the stars above, like the cosmos. Will the hand that lit the flame let it burn down? Let it burn out? Could we, too, become extinct? Or if this fire of life living inside us is meant to go on, who decides? Who tends the flames? Can he reignite the spark even as it grows cold and weak? "Or will the mystery be revealed through a sign, a symbol, a revelation?" -- Dana Scully, "Biogenesis" x~~X~~X~~X~~x~~ THE END ... for now ... ~~x~~X~~X~~X~~x~~ AUTHOR'S END NOTE: Yes, I know that the Dallas Stars did *not* win the Stanley Cup in the year this story was set, but I claim "Writer's Prerogative." After all, if the director of "Biogenesis" can have Mulder show a map of SOUTH Carolina for what *should* have been NORTH Carolina, where the episode was set, I can have the Stars do a little harmless time-traveling. ;) Thank you for reading.