Everything Zen (NC-17 Version) By Catwoman TheCatwoman@toosexyforyou.com Classification: V, A, MSR, RST Keywords: Mulder/Scully romance, post-episode story Rating: NC-17 (sex and violence, melody and silence...anyone else like The Verve?) Note: Okay, so who else felt that 'The Red and the Black' was just crying out for fanfic? Everything Zen NC-17 Version By Catwoman Disclaimer: Not mine, never were, never will be, unfortunately. They belong to CC, 1013, and Fox Broadcasting. The song 'Everything Zen', as quoted in this story, belongs to Bush and was written by Gavin Rossdale. Distribute: Please post to XF Fanfic, Gossamer, and ATXC. Thanx. Spoilers: Up to and including 'Patient X'/ 'The Red and the Black.' WARNING: Non-'shippers back out now. 'Nuff said. Note: Okay, well, I wrote this months ago when 'The Red And The Black' first came out, but I've only now gotten around to editing it. Hope it turned out okay. Thanx: Thank yous go out to Laura this time, for writing to tell me, and I quote, that 'Crawl' kicked ass. Thanx. Higher praise I have seldom heard. Dedication: I would like to dedicate this particularly angsty story to David Phillips...simply because I promised in my last one that I would. And because he's a complete sweetheart, of course. Love you, David! Summary: A lot was left unsaid at the end of 'The Red and the Black'. It has to get said at some point, right? In other words: Scully's got a lot of anger to vent and Mulder is the most obvious target. ***** Try to see it once my way Everything Zen Everything Zen I don't think so ***** It had been two hours since she'd been dropped at her house, two hours since she'd left Mulder. Two long, lonely, sleepless hours. She paced around her kitchen, sat down to try and watch TV for awhile, gave up and paced again, then made some coffee, curled up in the corner of her bedroom, bare legs folded beneath herself, and tried to warm her body into complacence with the hot liquid. She succeeded in calming her nerves, allowing her to stay still for a few moments, but not her emotions. A million different feelings boiled around with the rhythm of destiny's cauldron, threatening insanity. And she had no idea what to do about it. So much had happened over the last couple of days. That seemed to happen in her line of work a lot...with the amount of conspiracies that the X-Files team encountered, the number of aliens and monsters and mutants and things that go bump in the night, not to mention sinister looking, old men with cigarettes and well-polished manners and immaculate cuticles, Dana Scully was extremely used to having many things happen in a short amount of time. She'd lost her partner, her friend, Fox Mulder, many times before, and in much less time that it had taken for this particular case, if it could really be called that, to come to its frighteningly unsurprising dead end. And dead end it was. The case wasn't resolved-as usual, Scully thought sourly- Cassandra Spender was still missing, her son was still on their backs, Skinner was still red-faced...and the faceless men who'd acted out her very nightmares and then left her with no memory of it were nowhere to be found. If she really had seen them...the memories she had recovered in Doctor Verber's office were tentative at best, and now, with Mulder's reasoning backing up the nagging little voice in her mind, along with the fact that she simply didn't want it to be true, she was perfectly willing to believe that those memories had been a complete fabrication-something put there by whoever- whatever-controlled what went on in the small mass of electronics located just below the skin of the back of her neck. But then, of course, Dana was not Dana Scully. And while Dana Scully was perfectly used to the disappointment, the horror, the sadness, the loss...the emptiness...Dana was not. Dana was tired of harboring the experiences which Scully casually collected; in the end it was Dana, not Scully, who suffered through those experiences afterwards. It was Dana who had been forced to create a hole within herself to keep those memories in, memories of kidnappings and abductions and cancer and gunshots and death, so much death. Missy, Queequag, Emily. Mulder. Dana held these things within herself, because Scully wasn't allowed to feel them. Sometimes Scully-Dana-wondered if Mulder-Fox-did the same things for himself. If one part of him harbored all of the guilt while the other part remained unattached. However, Scully, who knew Mulder infinitely better than Dana knew Fox, knew that with Mulder it was never, had never been this way. Fox Mulder was one and the same, in this respect at least-he was guilt. His love was guilt, his hate was guilt. He lived guilt. There was a time when she would have also said that he was never unattached; that he always threw himself at the important things with the same radiant, impetuous enthusiasm and passion she'd come to know early in her time with him and come to love later on. But now...now even that thread was too thin to be trusted. This case...Mulder had been so unattached, the role reversal had been so complete...his reactions had only served to fuel her belief, while hers had only served to fuel his skepticism. What was happening to them? Scully asked herself the question often these days. It became difficult now to pinpoint the exact time things had started to go so terribly wrong...had it been when Emily had died? In the warehouse with Linda Bowman when Mulder had almost killed Scully yet again, and worse yet, when Mulder had watched her die? Things had been going well after her cancer had gone into remission; the joy had been enough to bring them back together after the struggle they'd gone through, the pain which had been strong enough to come close to tearing them apart. But now... Everything was distrust. They lied to each other, told themselves and each other that everything was the same, that the trust, the love, the caring was still as it always had been. But it wasn't. Something was terribly wrong. They'd become jaded, resentful of each other, and stubborn towards any notion thrown at them if it had anything to do with anything that had ever hurt either of them. And they took it out on each other. They were spiteful, angry most of the time, quietly fuming while they sat in their cramped little office, silently typing up reports and making surreptitious glances towards watches until the dragging days ended. And now this. Mulder's sudden insistence in a lack of belief. The mass killings that had almost included her in their number. He had insisted that his truth, the one he'd been searching for, was in her. Contained in the chip in her neck. She'd been so angry with him when he'd said that. Angry and hurt. What did he want: for her to take it out and die all over again? For him? And worst of all, he knew she would. He knew and he'd said it anyway. He'd never pressured her before, not like that. It had crushed her, knocked the wind out of her. It had made her say something not entirely true. Something she hadn't ever really wanted to say. That she wouldn't follow him anymore. That she couldn't. >From the beginning he'd been blasÚ about the chip. The first chip and the second chip. Insisting it was nothing, that she shouldn't worry; pretending he didn't know the seriousness of the situation. It had taken terminal cancer to get his attention. Would everything else be like this? Would she truly have to die for him to make him see her? And then there was the matter of her memory. Like Missy, he had consistently badgered her to try and recover the memories of her abduction when he knew perfectly well that she couldn't bring herself to face them. Now he wanted her to find her memories of a mass abduction experience, an unexplained time loss. This time the regression had worked-but what had she gotten out of it? Fake memories. Nothing but more false leads, fabrications of truth. Again, nothing but evidence...and yet no evidence at all. Lord knew she was angry at him. That was part of the reason for her restlessness: she'd really wanted to chew him out earlier, but he'd stepped into that car looking so lost and forlorn, like on their second major case, when she'd held a man at gun point in order to save her partner from the jaws of the American military, only to find him without memory of his recent past and lacking his usual sparkling confidence. That look of abject terror on his face had paralyzed all words in her throat-anything she might have said had slipped away when he'd choked out that he didn't know what had happened and dropped his face into his hands. Her body had reacted automatically, her hand reaching up and grabbing his hand, squeezing it gently in the universal gesture of reassurance. But she hadn't felt any reassurance, so she couldn't have given him any if he'd asked for it. Which of course he never would. One thing the two of them shared in common: the thing they were most stubborn about was what was considered weakness and what wasn't. And while if one had asked the other if a need for comfort was weakness that other would have said no, of course not, if one was to ask oneself the answer would be opposite. Yes, always. The worst weakness possible. The most dangerous vulnerability. Two very strong words in Dana Scully's vocabulary. Vulnerability and weakness. Trust. Belief. Strength. Love. Hate. And while all these emotions belonged to Scully, they were harbored by Dana. Poor, sweet little Dana, the tiny child that lived inside Scully's petite body, cowering in the darkness of Scully's cold, hard heart. If things kept going the way they were, Dana would die, Scully knew. And then it would just be her, all alone. An empty shell. Scully the mighty, the fucked up goddess with no emotions to speak of. And life would be even emptier. And if Dana was lost, Scully didn't think she'd have the strength to find her again. And then all hope would be lost too. ***** There must be something that we can eat Maybe find another lover Should I go down to Los Angeles Find my asshole brother ***** Mulder lay awake, on his back, staring up at the ceiling. He remained that way for almost an hour until something inexplicable and uncontrollable made him bolt out of bed and into a state of hurried motion, pacing around his apartment, muttering incoherent phrases like a madman and running his fingers through his hair, making it stand on end. If anyone had been watching, they would have said he had gone insane. He wondered. Meanwhile, the mental spasm lasted only a moment or so before it drifted away into the emptiness that his emotions had become that night, leaving him standing in his hallway. The sudden loss of occupation left him speechless and with tears welling up in his eyes. He didn't like to do nothing when there were things to be done, things to say, people to apologize too. Like Scully. He'd thought back over the last few days and realized how he'd treated her; how he'd treated everyone...but especially her. Scully was the one usually *not* included in his bouts of anger at the world, the one who remained shielded under the soft protection of his emotional wings. The only one who had managed to become so much a part of himself as to be the victim just as much as himself. He'd made her that way; he'd made her the victim, and now he was punishing her for it. How could he have been so stupid, he wondered? How could he have treated her so? After all, she'd been through enough herself. The abduction, the chip, the cancer, Emily, and now this...and all of it, ultimately, was because of him, if only through association. And despite the fact that Scully was as natural a part of him as breathing, and as important to him as his very soul in that she was his only savior, he still managed to treat her like the outsider- or worse, like the spy, the simpering little schoolgirl who'd been sent to tag along and who did her job conscientiously. Oh, she did her job all right. But not for them. Never for them. She did it for herself, and for him. And he treated her as though she had been on their side all along. As if she were as vile as the black lunged bastard himself. His abuse of her appalled him---his mental slaps were much worse than the worst physical abuse. If he had raped her he couldn't have hurt her more than he had in the last while--- and that had essentially been what he'd done. When he'd insisted that the truth was held in the computer chip in her neck, when he'd demanded that she try to recover her memories, when he'd openly vandalized her trust by refusing to believe anything she believed. That was rape. Rape of her emotions. He'd hurt her very badly; badly enough for her to retaliate at one point: in the hospital room she had told him she wouldn't, couldn't follow him where he was headed, and yet he'd dragged her along anyway. She'd never spoken against him with quite such conviction before; she'd insisted, and yet still he'd ignored her wishes, putting his ahead of hers. Selfishness had abounded in this last case, on almost everyone's sides. Why she hadn't hit him, at least once, remained a mystery to him. Did she feel obligated to him in some way? If he were her, he was sure he would have hit him several times over the course of the past few days. And he would have made it a hard hit, because he, being as close to himself as anyone could get, knew perfectly well that even if she had given him a good, stinging slap across the face, it wouldn't have broken through to him. Regrets and unspoken apologies and sadness and other little tortures came to him at the worst times; alone, in the middle of the night, like this, when sleep wouldn't come, or when he wouldn't let it come because of the by-now familiar sense that the night terrors would be especially horrific that night. He thought of Scully, lying alone at home. Almost immediately, the memory of her session in Doctor Verber's office came to him. The way she had been so calm, and then she had suddenly exploded, crying out God's name dozens of times, shouting it, scared and amazed by what she saw in her own memory: terrible, awesome things that she would never have thought up by herself. Things that she, like he, was now convinced were untrue. She had held his hand through that session, though she hadn't known it; he had been her anchor to this lifetime while she explored a lifetime somebody else had created for her. And as soon as she had finished, as soon as she'd awakened and looked over at him with the horror of catching herself in a vulnerable state written in her eyes, what had he done? He'd ditched her. Again. He'd run off, leaving her alone to deal with the weakness he could so easily have brushed away with a few simple choice words. Even if she could ever forgive him for what had happened recently, which was improbable---he suspected she'd long since had her fill of things she'd conveniently forgotten about his treatment of her---he could never forgive himself. It was always this way. But things were slightly different this time. This time there was no assurance whatsoever, from himself or Scully, because both of them had reached rock- bottom; both of them were empty. The question was, would they ever find themselves again? He had no doubt in his mind that on Monday morning he would find her resignation on his desk. The question was, if she left him, could he go on? Or would he finally do what he'd thought of doing so many times before, what he'd made the FBI believe he'd already done once? If all else failed, could it really be so hard to pick up his gun and shove it down his throat? Somehow that thought was more comfortable than either alternative; a life without Scully, or, on the off-chance that she stayed, a life with Scully but without the emotion they'd once had. ***** Minnie Mouse has grown up a cow Dave's on sale again We kissy kiss in the rearview We're so bored you're to blame ***** Scully had gone back to bed, finally allowing her body to rest a bit while her mind continued in overdrive. The unfortunate thing about her bed was that it remained next to the window, where her eyes were now inexorably drawn to Cassiopeia. The W stared back in its placid nature, unblinking, unchanging. In all likelihood, already dead. Just like me, she thought distractedly. All thought besides anger was barely acknowledged. The sight of Cassiopeia, the unknowing beacon of the unknown experiment which Scully had unwittingly and unwillingly taken part of, served only to fuel her anger all the more. And more and more her anger became directed at Mulder as her mind replayed in tortuous detail the way he had mistreated her, the way he had brushed her off and then been in her face demanding for her to follow him again and again in the last while, over and over. The ticking of the clock was insidious, a reminder that she was still lying there, allowing herself to be consumed by the fire of her anger while he probably lay sleeping, or at least trying to sleep, at home, probably perfectly unaware of the fact that he'd left her in more of a shambles than he ever had before. She was shattered. Her insides felt like a mirror had been broken within herself; every move she made, something inside cut her like fresh glass. Her emotions swirled in a complex nothingness like the very void from which universe had emerged. She didn't like that feeling, that timelessness, that weightlessness. Where was her science when she needed it? Not only had he taken her heart, her soul, her mind, but her belief too. Her blessed science, her anchor. He had taken everything and forgotten to give it back at the end of their fiasco as he usually did. She was reminded suddenly of Clyde Bruckman, of something he'd said to her when they'd been forced to stay in the same hotel room together. She'd asked him how she would die, and he'd simply replied that she wouldn't. She had scoffed at it as merely one of his cryptic comments meant to induce belief at the time, but now she wondered if that might be true. Then, at that moment, she felt she might live forever, so strong was her lack of emotion, so hot her anger. She might be immortal; she'd live empty like this forever and never have the chance to tell Mulder how much she hated him. She threw herself out of bed and dressed herself hurriedly; a pair of jeans, one of his shirts which she kept in her bottom drawer for emergencies. Perhaps the familiarity would hurt him more. She wanted to hurt him badly. Her natural instinct was to take her gun, though she knew she could never use it on anything during this encounter. So, with great hesitation, she left it lying in her underwear drawer and made her way out the front door, being sure to push away all thoughts of letting him know she was coming. So what if he was sleeping; let him suffer all the more. ***** Raindogs howl for the century A million dollars a steak As you search for your demi-god And you fake with a saint ***** It was almost two o'clock in the morning when Mulder heard the loud knock on his door. Loud and unfamiliar. He pushed himself off of the couch, where he'd been sitting for the last hour or so, fully clothed once again, and made his way over to the door. The peephole displayed a fuming Scully, lips pursed, arms crossed, her entire stance suggesting extreme anger and the possibility of a fight to end all fights. Blanching and grimacing and cringing simultaneously, Mulder opened the door. And immediately found himself pushed forcibly backwards, sending him reeling back in the general vicinity of where he'd come from. The door slammed behind her, making him wince again. If she woke all the neighbors with this it would only make it worse...but he supposed he deserved all he could get, including Ms. Dinsmore's whining. He reluctantly lifted his gaze to hers, and physically jumped back as an image somewhat reminiscent of that of Karen Matthews' as she'd tried to kill Billy glared back at him. That same evil, predatory glare was in his partner's normally cool, placid gaze-pure hatred, he would have said on a guess. Oh shit, he thought. Here goes. "Did it ever really matter to you, Mulder?" she asked icily, stepping further towards him, making him back away from her further. He didn't answer. "You know what I mean!" she snapped. "Did it ever really matter to you, or did you just play along 'cause you had to?" "I don't know what you mean, Scully," he said quietly, his dark, pained hazel eyes staring back at her from across the room. "Then maybe I should illuminate it for you," she said darkly. "What I mean to say is, did our partnership ever really matter to you, or have you been putting me on this entire time? Is it just now that you've lost interest in me, or have you always found me an annoyance, an inconvenience?" "Scully, you know..." he began carefully. "I know screw-all, Mulder!" she shouted, her voice several full notches louder than it had been a moment before. His strong impulse was to cover his ears and cower in a corner, but he stayed put, arms firmly at sides. "I know dick! And you know why? Precisely because you abandon me every time I need to know something!" "Scully..." "Shut up, Mulder, just shut up. It's my turn. Now you listen to me. I am not, I never have been, and I never will be your puppet. I wasn't given to you to be your dog toy, your pig's ear to chew on whenever you please and ditch in a corner whenever you don't please. How dare you assume that I would allow that? How dare you blame me for what's happened to you? To me! HOW DARE YOU TELL ME IT'S MY FAULT!" "Wha..." Mulder began, frowning. "Don't you 'what' me, Mulder; you know exactly what I'm talking about. I get back from a Goddamn near-death experience and you waltz into my hospital room, make comments about my first-degree burns as though they were weather phenomena and then go on to tell me that it's my fault! That your truth was, of all places, in the chip in my neck! What the hell do you want me to do, Mulder, pull out the Goddamn chip so you can observe it a little more, so you can find your answers, while I, meanwhile, die from an unknown cancer, stuck back in the cobwebs of the resources you've discarded over the years? Is that it?" Her eyes were truly blazing now, and she had started to pace, back and forth in the front hallway, her hands moving around to emphasize her points as they came along, her eyes wild and unfocused, flitting around the room like an insane hummingbird in a catastrophic last flight. "No, Scully, I..." "YOU KNEW!" she blasted, turning towards him again and then away as she continued. "From the very moment you discovered the implants in those victim's necks you knew what was happening but your stupid pride wouldn't allow you to see it. So you brushed me aside, hoping that if you ignored me, maybe it wouldn't happen. Well, it did, Mulder! I almost died. AGAIN!" "Scully, I..." "SHUT UP!" she screamed, hands balling into fists in her rage. "You think that you can ignore everything that I've had to say to you for the longest time and then expect me to listen to you!? NO! I won't let you do this to me, Mulder! I won't let you make this my fault!" Mulder opened and closed his mouth several times helplessly, wondering whether it would be more damaging to keep silent while she ranted or to try and speak over her and get to her. For the moment he opted for silence. "And then you tell me that I *have* to get the memories back for you. For the good of your 'cause.' That I *have* to go and see your Doctor Verber and get memories that aren't even mine recovered. Where did that leave me, huh, Mulder? You take one Goddamn guess where that left me." His eyes dropped from her, the shame flooding his face. She kept going. "I came here, to your apartment, earlier this evening, to try and talk to you, to try and work this out reasonably and see if we could resolve whatever had happened between. And what do you do? You not only ignore my attempts at talking to you, you go ahead and drag me off to yet ANOTHER fucking secret military airfield, chasing after aliens you don't believe exist and again, for what? NOTHING! You left me behind again, the decoy, the one who stalls the military while you go ahead. And you come back with what? MEMORY LOSS? That's a poor excuse for ditching me, Mulder. Next time it'll be that your dog ate your homework, right?" There were now tears streaming down his cheeks, which he tried his best to ignore as he listened attentively to everything she threw at him. "But nothing hurts me more than the fact that you ignored me this entire case, Mulder. You knew I was hurt. I saw it in your eyes; every minute I was with you I saw it," her own eyes were now spilling tears at an alarming rate, and the deep blues of her irises finally focused on him, and she watched as he slowly lifted his eyes to her. "And yet still, when I needed you most, you closed me out. I can't be ignored that way, Mulder, I can't be denied like that. You yourself say that I need to loosen up, to let myself hurt a little, to let you help me. How can I do that when you close me out when I need you? Don't you understand what that does to me? Sure, it takes away the pain, but it leaves it with this." Her hand closed over the centre of her chest. "Emptiness," she closed her eyes. "Emptiness so profound all my sense and sensibility can't make it go away." She opened her eyes again and focused on him. "And I came here with anger," she said, her voice softening considerably. "But now all I am is empty." She whispered a muffled, 'Oh, God' as she sank onto the floor, back against the wall as she balled herself up and sobbed into her knees. "Dana, I've lost you," she whispered sorrowfully, just loud enough so that he heard it. He'd never been more terrified in his life. ***** There's no sex in your violence There's no sex in your violence ***** END PART ONE "Why are you still here?" Mulder said tiredly from under the hand that shielded his eyes. His figure was slumped unceremoniously in front of the couch, on the floor, everything in his posture suggesting complete defeat. Scully knew that if she left, his gun, which was lying undisturbed on his coffee table, would probably go off a few moments later. He sighed, a deep, shuddering sigh, and then forced his voice to come out again. It was weak, cracked in many places like an old vase which had been broken many times and glued together with nothing but stick glue. "You know I can't apologize to you," he went on, his voice as empty as he felt, as she felt. His hand came away from his eyes, which were still tear- streaked, even after all the hours they'd had to dry while the two of them had sat in silence, empty silence. His eyes focused on the coffee table, on the familiar figure of his gun. "The very nature of your complaint precludes that-I wouldn't insult your intelligence by..." "Damn it, Mulder, cut the crap," she said just as tiredly, a phrase she'd used many times before but with far more conviction. A soft bubble of manic laughter hiccuped up his throat and spilled from his lips, a laugh that reflected the nature of his inside at that moment; hanging by one thin thread of sanity. "What..." he forced himself to stop laughing, laboring himself to take a deep breath once again before he hid his eyes behind a hand again and continued. "What would you like me to say?" Scully sighed and half-heartedly scratched at an itch on her thigh, which was half folded under herself while the other one was propped up, her elbow resting on her knee. She closed her eyes, opened them again, forced a new batch of unwelcome tears back into her mind. "Why don't you start by answering my question?" she said dully, briefly lifting her eyes to glance at him, and then lowering her gaze to her lap again. "Which one? If you want me to tell you how I dare, I can't, because there's no answer to that, except that I'm a pig." "Well, that I've always suspected," she made an empty attempt at a joke which fell flat because of the lack of feeling in her voice and the thin nothingness floating through the air. "No, I want you to tell me if...if this partnership means anything to you. If it ever has, or if I've been wasting my time these last four and a half years." Mulder was silent for a long, still moment, and then his voice, barely above a whisper, drifted across to her once again. "You know it does, Scully." "No, I don't," she said, allowing a touch of unwarranted laughter to work its way into her own speech. "That's just it." She took another deep breath, forced herself to swallow what tasted faintly like bile in her throat, and dropped her head again. "I used to think I knew what our partnership meant to you, but I don't know anymore. And maybe it's the loss of that certainty that's a major factor in this terrible emptiness I feel now." He swallowed, tried to speak for a moment, and finally succeeded. "It means everything to me, Scully. There is nothing else." She was silent for a long moment, attempting to correlate this with his behavior of the last few days. "Then I guess my next question would be: why, if it means so much to you, do you persist in treating me like the underdog...like some lost puppy who's come to you for solace, yours to command and to ditch whenever you please?" It was harsh, and rightly so, and it stung Mulder as much as anything could in his current state of pseudoreality. He sighed again. "I suppose you knew that one too, at some point. I ditch you for protective reasons; I just can't get it through my thick skull that you're my partner, not my friend; that I don't have to protect you. I can't bring myself to willingly put you in danger that way." "Then what was it that made you leave me alone to die this time?" she whispered the dreaded question into the empty room. "That would be part of my second answer," he said, clearing his throat before continuing. "The reason that I treat you like a dog most of the time is equally simple; if I don't find some way to distance myself from you sometimes, I can't control myself." "Control yourself? From what?" "From making a mistake," he said, and momentarily his hollow, empty eyes stared at her from between his fingers, and then they were gone again. "If I get too close to you, Scully, I will try to get too close to you. It's inevitable, unless I make myself stop it. So I push away. You do the same thing; I don't know if it's for the same reasons, but you do it." "You push away from me for romantic reasons," she stated analytically, as though reading off a case report. "In order to prevent them from becoming romantic reasons, yes," he nodded into his hand. "And how does that pertain to this case?" she asked, slipping back into Doctor Scully mode as the gist of their current conversation made its way into her convoluted, empty brain. He took another deep breath. "Scully," he began carefully, and listened for a moment to be sure she was listening. He heard her breath, steady but sharp, indicating that her mouth hung slightly open. She was listening. "When your cancer went into remission, I felt closer to you than I ever had before, and by some of your actions then, I guess that you felt a little looser yourself. I wondered at that time whether, even though both of us continued to push against it, we might move past our partnership into something much more dangerous." He paused again, allowing that statement to sink in. "But then Emily died, and..." He heard her breath catch in her throat at the mention of her short-lived daughter and the girl's horrible death. He lowered his voice slightly. "But then Emily died and you pushed away from me so sharply I felt like the separation had caused some tearing, some internal bleeding. I bled for quite awhile, while you went on, remaining carefully unattached. Linda Bowman set us even further apart. Things have been going downhill since." "I've noticed," she murmured, but her tone fully invited him to continue. "This case...this case hit home with me just the same way it did with you," he shook his head slightly. "It hit me *because* it hit you. My protective instinct was stronger than ever the last couple days, and so was my possessiveness. They wanted to hurt you, and you're right, I knew it, and the very nature of my anger frightened me. So I backed off. I pushed you away and tamped down my fears as paranoia, leaving you to fend for yourself. It was safer for me that way than to have to face you with what my particular anger meant." "You thought that I would find out that you love me," she said quietly. He smiled faintly and nodded, unable to form words. The tears were coming up his throat again. "And were you also afraid to find out that I loved you too?" she continued in that same placid tone. His horrid smile remained. " 'Loved' being the operative term," he muttered loudly, then spoke normally. "I couldn't ever allow myself to hope for that...but yes, I suppose so." "Why do you always have to mix up personal matters with work?" she hissed, sounding irritated. Another tiny spurt of laughter bubbled forth. "Because I'm not like you, Scully. I can't keep work in one frame of mind and personal matters in another. I can't keep one part of myself detached and hide the part that isn't. I'm one whole person and everything is the same to me. If I love you here at my home I also love you in our office at work." There was a long silence, and when he glanced over at her, she was crying again, weeping silently this time, her eyes focused on the far wall. He straightened up. "I'm sorry," he said quietly. "I know that was uncalled for..." "No," she said simply, shaking her head. Her hands came up to wipe the tears away. "That's just the point. It's true and I know it is. I just can't...I don't know why I am the way I am, but I am that way. I may not want to be, but..." "It doesn't mean that your way isn't effective," he said, smiling again, albeit faintly and forced. "It's much better than mine." "I don't know," Scully said, glancing down at her hands. "Sometimes I wish I had your freedom." He didn't answer. Instead he turned back to looking at the floor. Eventually, in the silence of the room, he closed his eyes. "What if I could try it your way?" she whispered finally. "What if...what if you never had to distance yourself again?" "Scully..." he began, preparing himself to stop her from doing something she would regret. "Mulder, no," she said firmly, shutting him up instantly. "Stop it. I don't want this to go on anymore. You know I can't live with it. You know you can't." "What is it you don't want to go on?" he asked softly, lifting his head slightly, his eyes meeting hers. "This farce that we call a life," she said, eyes latching onto his, becoming lost in him. "We think we're protecting ourselves and each other and all we're doing is hurting ourselves and each other." "What are you saying?" he whispered. "I'm saying that I feel the same way you do," she whispered back, her eyes shining. "That that's why I distance myself too; that that's why it hurts so much when you distance yourself from me." He closed his eyes as if in pain and turned his head away from her. "Mulder, please," she whispered. "No, Scully...no..." "Why? Because you're afraid of the loss of the lie or because you're afraid of the introduction of the truth?" she whispered, and he heard the faint rustle of her clothing as she stirred from where she'd sat for the past few hours. He kept his eyes tightly shut and forced himself not to hear her as she moved towards him. He jumped when her hand closed over one of his hands, and his breath caught in his throat. Then her lips touched his, gently, carefully, as though she were afraid he might bite her in his fear. Her lips closed over his bottom lip, sucking gently as she waited for him to decide. Her thigh pressed into his knee, her hand was warm in his. And then he tasted something salty on his tongue, and he realized that tears were slipping freely down her cheeks again, the tears of a thousand sorrows which she had never allowed free until this night. And he lost it. His lips fastened on hers quickly enough to put her off balance, so his other hand rapidly found hers and their fingers interlaced on both hands, holding them steadily joined as his tongue slipped past her lips and then her teeth, reaching in to find her tongue, to dance with it in the eternal dance of darkness. Her tongue running over his teeth was all the power in the world; it was everything he'd always feared. He pulled back as quickly as he'd entered, unfastening himself from the kiss and trying unsuccessfully to let go of her hands. She squeezed his fingers tighter, her eyes attaching to his again, seeking their way into his, finding him and telling him to stay. He stopped fidgeting. "Scully, we can't do this..." he began a weak complaint. "Why?" she murmured. "It wouldn't be right. We've both had a hard night; neither of us is thinking too clearly..." "On the contrary, I think we're both thinking clearly for the first time," she said, and as she spoke, she lifted herself over him, straddling his lap and squeezing his thighs with hers. Their hands remained joined, closed between them as they sat staring into each other's eyes, waiting for one or the other to react. Finally, she tentatively reached for him again, and this time his lips met hers in a tender kiss of acceptance, a nice, soft kiss which lasted for several calm minutes before the urgency of their forbidden love bubbled up again, and things escalated. Tongues came past lips again and dueled harshly, teeth came into play, and Scully compulsively squeezed her legs over his lap whenever he happened to touch her mouth in any number of specific ways. They forced themselves to break a moment later, and she dropped her head into his neck, nuzzling her nose against his skin, and he dropped his cheek to rest on hers. "I love you, Mulder, you know I do," she whispered into his neck. Something very much like a sob rippled through him and left his old self in its wake. Her lips grazed over his neck, her hands squeezing his as she moved. "Oh, Dana..." he murmured, kissing her cheek. "The only way to keep it hidden, to keep it safe, was to not do it. You understand that, right?" 'Was,' she noted, a thrill running down her spine. "Yes. That was one of my problems too," she agreed in a whisper. "Along with pride and fear." "Yeah," he nodded against her. She managed to free her hands from his, and she started to run her hands over his torso, memorizing every curve in his musculature, every place that made him squirm. "But I *do not* want to live that way anymore," she insisted again, and he smiled and kissed her gently on the lips. "I didn't say I wanted to either," he murmured. He lifted his hands then, in a gesture of what could have been surrender, but which was closer to confusion...he didn't know where to start, she realized. He was afraid to touch her. Settling herself more firmly in his lap, and noting with pleasure and a pounding heart the force of his newly founded erection pressing up against her, she leaned forward and nuzzled her face into his neck, listening as a soft hiss of breath escaped from between his teeth, something between a sigh of contentment and a gasp of fear. "We don't have to do this now, you know," she whispered, dragging her lips across his skin to just under his ear. His hands had given up and were resting by his sides on the floor. "It might be wise for us to wait, to give this some time..." This time he sighed in what sounded like real contentment, perhaps because she'd just single-handedly taken the brunt of the pressure off of their current position. Suddenly it felt natural to want to slide his arms around her, to hold her close for the sake of holding her close. She was nuzzling his neck again, just burying herself in his soft skin, feeling his pulse beat strongly against her face, and most of all, secretly using the time she'd just given them to memorize everything about him of that moment-the faintly musty smell she inhaled from his skin, the warmth that emanated from his skin, the feel of his body as he finally, if naturally reluctantly, allowed the loss of control that showed her exactly how he physically felt about her. That was enough trust for now...perhaps they would discover more later, she thought, her heart turning over in a somewhat joyful thump. Now she allowed the amazement to wash over her. She had come to his apartment for a fight, nothing more, and had stumbled into a den of thick, unusually high-strung and dangerously unchained emotions out of which she had emerged not only unscathed, but probably better for the wear. Only time would tell. Now, wrapped around Mulder the way she was, feeling his breath pulsate into her ear and through her head, feeling his heartbeat under her fingertips, she wanted nothing less than to stay here, in his arms, all night. Just to hold him would have been enough. She told him the truth...if they didn't make love right away, she wouldn't be sorry. But she did wish he would lose his ever-stubborn fear. His hands...she wanted to feel them on herself, somewhere, touching her, no matter how deeply. Closing her eyes against the skin of his neck, she reached back with both hands and took his hands in hers, startling him out of whatever silent reverie he had been in, and without protest from his direction, she gently slid his hands up, behind her back, encouraging him to hold her. To her delight, the rest happened of its own accord: his arms slid snugly around her waist, fitting naturally, and stayed there, holding her not tightly or loosely, but beautifully. She smiled, and he must have felt it, because she felt a faint smile on his lips as he gently kissed her forehead. "So what now?" he murmured into her ear, almost as though they weren't alone; as though his system couldn't get used to the fact that they were close enough now that he didn't have to bend and whisper in her ear as he usually did. "I don't know," she murmured back, and a fast-spreading, infectious warmth spread through his body as her arms slipped around him, holding him to her just as naturally as his arms held her. They were now almost completely curled around each other. When she finally dropped her head to rest sideways on his shoulder, and he dropped his head to her shoulder, they truly were. When her voice next came, it was muffled, buried in the old sweatshirt he was wearing. "Does it matter?" "I don't know," he replied, and thought he sensed her smile. "Why don't we go to bed?" she suggested, her tone implying nothing but a genuine wish to settle somewhere. "Why don't we?" he agreed, then chuckled. "What?" she asked, and he could tell by her tone that she was frowning. "I don't have a bed," he answered simply. "Oh," she said just as simply, and then she started to chuckle too, and then they were laughing, holding each other more tightly as the rolls of pleasant mirth swept through them. Neither of them had laughed like that for a long time, and it did wonders to heal old wounds and the wounds they had created that night, and on the dread case they hadn't mentioned since their revelations of what seemed like eons earlier. "Right." They were silent for several minutes, once again content just to sit in each others arms and gravitate. "So we'll go to my place," she said as though it were the most natural idea in the world, which it was at that point. He was silent. "Seems almost fitting," she said, filling his silence with words, though they weren't truly needed. "That we should spend our first night together in the all-too-large bed where I've spent the last four-and-a-half years tamping down sexual fantasies and cursing myself for being so soft as to have fallen for you. For me, at least, that's a fitting end." "It is that," he agreed in a murmur. "So?" she questioned, finally lifting her head off of his shoulder, forcing him to lift his and meet her intense gaze. She was tired, he could see, but she didn't want to do anything without him. He smiled at her, a genuine, warm smile, and she smiled back, then pushed herself up off of him and to a standing position, after which she reached down and offered him her hands, and using her hands more for emotional support rather than physical, he brought himself up to stand with her, over- towering her as usual. "So, lead the way, G-woman," he said with almost an impish grin, and she smirked, one eyebrow twitching slightly, but didn't move. Now she looked uncomfortable. "I'm afraid if I don't touch you, you'll disappear again," she said finally, glancing up at him with naked fear and trust in her eyes. He reached down and clasped one of her hands, and with that as incentive, she walked across to the door, pulling him along with her, and stepped out of their old life and into their new one. *** As soon as they were back on her domain, Scully's stubborn, shy side reared its head again and she started to fuss, offering him anything to drink or eat or...he stopped her swiftly by laying one soft finger over her lips, ceasing her monologue instantly. She broke into a self-deprecating smile and shrugged her shoulders, gesturing that she had no idea what to do now that they were here. So, she did the first thing that came to mind and led him into her bedroom, not bothering to turn any lights on as she went. Inside, she undressed without haste and apparently without too many qualms in front of him, and when she was naked down to her panties and nothing more, she stopped briefly, allowing him his shameless moment of looking her over, growing to love what he saw, before she pulled back on the shirt-which was his, he noted with interest-which she had been wearing before. Then she crawled into her bed, finding her way easily in the relative dark, interrupted only by the faint moonlight coming through her window, and she made her way under her covers and then turned to him, motioning for him to join her. He undressed as she had, leaving himself only in his underwear as she had originally, and allowing her the same good moment of just observing him so close to being naked freely, without consequence. Then he got into the large bed next to her, finding her already smiling, her face flushed. She immediately reached out her arms to him, and he crawled into them, curling up against her, listening to her heartbeat as her fingers naturally made their way to his hair, stroking through the thick strands in a lulling hypnotism he would come to love for its simplicity and its beauty. They both dozed for awhile, and eventually it was she who became active again, her hands coming down to smooth over his arms, his back, while her lips came down to lightly kiss his cheek, the top of his head. He took her incentive and lifted himself up slightly, allowing himself for the first time to consider what he truly could now do with her...the freedom he now had with her emotions and, more immediately, her body. But they only managed several long sessions of gentle kissing and tender exploration before they both drifted into a deep, blessed sleep. *** END PART TWO It was morning when the true urge, and more importantly, the true sense of right in the action, came to them, or to Mulder at least, who was, of course, the first to draw himself up out of sleep. Over the course of the night they had moved around several times, and had finally ended up spooned against each other on their sides, Scully securely tucked into his folded body, his arms around her. Now he lifted himself up, leaning on his elbow, to look down at her, and then, not much later, to reach down and flutter several gentle kisses onto her exposed face. She stirred, but didn't awaken completely, so he carefully withdrew his arms from around her, at which her mouth immediately formed into a somewhat startled and certainly dismayed 'o' of protest, and then, being careful not to jar her, he gently rolled her onto her back. Once again, she didn't manage to awaken completely. He carefully unbuttoned the shirt she wore and slipped the sides of it out of the way, allowing his hands free access to her naked torso, now exposed to him and the air, causing her skin to pucker into goose flesh. She shivered slightly from the cold and woke up a little more, while his hands gently ran over her naked flesh, becoming accustomed to the soft feel of her skin under his fingertips. But it wasn't until his mouth gently, warmly closed over her left nipple that she awoke fully, and when she did, it was to be thrown straight into a wave of desire which made her immediate response a deep- throated groan that seemed to come from the very depths of her womb. Mulder smiled and lifted himself to look at her, to be what she saw when she opened her eyes. When she did, her eyes were not only grinning, but also swimming with what was now only a mild but which would become a roaring need. Immediately her mouth joined in, grinning widely as her hands came up to clamp on either side of his face, pulling him down to her mouth for a happy kiss, which quickly progressed to a needy kiss, making her arch against him, teasing his exposed flesh with her own, until they were both left gasping for air. Then Mulder moved to her breasts again, and for awhile, Scully allowed herself to concentrate on nothing but her own pleasure. But her own pleasure was quickly pushed into a back corner of her mind when she first felt his erection brush against her thigh. It was an accident; he had been maneuvering cleverly to avoid touching her with it, to avoid scaring her or inadvertently pressuring her. Little did he know that if she had been of a mind to think at that time, she would have been worried that she wasn't good enough to get him in that state. Now, feeling only the barest touch of something far too hard to be any other part of him other than the obvious, curiosity washed through her with all the rage of the desire she felt and without a moment's thought, she reached down with both hands, not even having to fumble before she grabbed him. He let out a tiny sound that might've been his version of a shriek, and almost collapsed right on top of her, but his shaking arms managed to hold him up as he abruptly ceased all motion, glaring down at her. "You might want to tell me before you do something like that again," he informed her prissily. She almost ignored him, so engrossed was she in her exploration of this new territory, but after a second's hesitation, she spoke, distantly, her eyes focused on trying to see what she held in her hands. "I'm sorry," she murmured. "I just wanted to see..." "See what?" he asked, smirking. "You're a doctor, Scully. You don't need to see it to know it's there." She blushed, her eyes lifting to meet his as her hands coolly came up to smooth over his stomach muscles. "Actually, Mulder, I..." she trailed off, losing her nerve, inevitably. "You what?" he asked, sliding down to lie next to her again, propped on his side as he gazed down at her. "I was afraid that I...I mean I didn't know if I...I wanted to make sure that..." "You mean I wasn't letting you know that I was aroused?" he exclaimed, humor and surprise in his voice. "Well, technically, but..." she blushed again, her body suddenly vividly remembering the feel of his lips on her breasts just a few short moments before. Her eyes met his again, everything about her shy. "What can I say, Mulder; it's been a really, really long time." He smiled and reached up one hand to smooth back her hair from her forehead, reassurance clear in his eyes. "And you know me," she continued, trying to lighten the mood. "Always need my empirical evidence to support my theories." "Oh, yes, of course," he said, rolling his eyes at himself. Then he looked down at her again. "But you still should have let the test subject know what you were going to do to him before you scared the bejesus out of him at eight-thirty in the morning." "I suppose so," she grinned. "In the future I will remember to tell you when I need to collect evidence." "I should hope so," he agreed pompously, and she grinned wider. His expression sobered. "Scully...I know how you feel. I really do. It's hard to believe after all this time of denying it...I mean, it's hard to believe that you love me, that you want me, and I can understand you feeling that same disbelief...that same fear...about me, too. After the way I've treated you..." "It's not that, Mulder," she sighed. "Let's not talk about that now. Let's call it...feminine vanity. I...I want you so much, Mulder, and I want to make sure you feel the same way before I..." "Before you what?" Mulder grinned smugly at her. "Jump my bones?" "I couldn't have said it better myself," she said simply, and he sputtered out laughter so quickly he almost fell off the bed, and while she started to chuckle herself, she had to reach over and steady him. "Sorry; guess you're not used to the kidding around either." "Not like that, Scully," he agreed, trying to stop laughing. "Quite frankly, I've never been more turned on in my life." "Well, that does wonders for my self-esteem, just so you know," she said in a sarcastic tone, though her words were totally sincere. She was genuinely frightened, he realized. Not unlike himself. Finally, they both settled down, and he leaned over and settled his head on her chest, which instinctively brought her arms up around him, holding him close as he held her. Her chest rose and fell steadily under his head; her heart beat a tad more quickly than usual under his ear. "I think we both need a little reassurance, here," he said softly. "Maybe we should take it a little slower." "Probably a good idea," she whispered, not knowing why she was whispering but compelled to do it anyway. "Have to learn the ropes, after all." "Very aptly put as usual, Agent Scully." "Thank you, Agent Mulder." They lay there in each others arms for another of their momentary eternities before she stirred beneath him. "I know," she said, inspiration striking. "Let's take a shower." "Good idea," he said instantly, his mind already working on bringing back dream images of Dana Scully, sweat and water and soap pouring down her body as he... "We could both use a little 'cleansing', wouldn't you say?" "I would say so, yes," she said quietly, and he hugged her tightly for a moment. "I'm so sorry," he said finally, something which he hadn't said since last night, something that he'd told her he couldn't do but which he'd just done because he knew that at some point it had to be said. "I'm sorry about everything. Everything I've ever done to you...deliberately or not." "Oh, Mulder," she whispered, just holding him for a moment before she stirred again. There was no further response to his apology, which hurt him in some ways because he needed to know she accepted, but which relieved him in many others. This time he lifted himself enough to let her out from under him, to allow her to crawl across and off the bed. He watched her as she stood, stretched, yawned, looked over at him with impatience in her gaze. He smiled at her, trying to hide any of that hurt, and she tilted her head at him, eyes wide with something like compassion. "I love you, Mulder," she said again, voice tainted with real truth. "Do you really need me to tell you you're forgiven?" He watched her for a moment, relief flooding through him, and then he came across the bed and took her hands as he came to stand next to her. "How 'bout that shower?" he whispered down at her, his eyes shining, and she smiled and led him into the bathroom. She closed the door, and for some unknown if not understandable reason locked it, then turned to face him. She made a face at him as she passed by him in the small space, moving for the shower, where she reached down and turned on the faucets, leaving her hand under the tap water for several seconds as she tested the temperature until it was right. Then she drew the shower curtain mostly closed, reached in again, and pulled out the little plug that let loose the shower head. She hurriedly closed the curtain on the insistent spray. Mulder watched all this while leaning against the counter, arms crossed, one eyebrow quirked as he observed Dana Scully, the partner who was never anything but professional, go through the motions of normal, daily life. When she turned to face him, she stopped under the warmth of his gaze for a moment, her cheeks going hot again. Then his hands reached out and took hers, pulling her to his lips. The kiss lasted long into their memories, a passionate, beautiful kiss that spoke of acceptance and love and anticipation, most of all. She finally broke the kiss, looking up at him through clouded eyes, her mouth hanging slightly open. "Take off your clothes," she whispered hoarsely, and he chuckled in something like surprise but obeyed, watching her as she stripped of his shirt and her underwear and then immediately stepped into the shower stall, giving him no time to observe her. He stood outside, considering this, then smirked and stepped in after her. He found her already standing under the spray, her hair and skin quickly becoming saturated with the flowing water. Now he could look at her. And look at her he did. His eyes were again drawn to her breasts, two small, perfectly rounded little orbs jutting proudly from her chest, declaring to the world, 'I am woman!' in the only way they could. But now he had more to look at. His eyes traveled down, and stayed there, his hands itching to touch her. He felt her eyes on him, the heat of her gaze as she waited for him to make his move, leaving it all to him. Finally, giving in to his first instinct, Mulder knelt directly in front of her, which seemed to surprise her, and he knew for sure he'd shocked her when he felt a shudder go through her as he reached forward and nuzzled his face into her belly, his hands holding her firmly in place by the hips. She'd given him the incentive and now he had control, and they both knew it. He stayed there for a long moment, his head resting over her lower abdomen, ear pressed to her as though he were trying to hear something that wasn't there anymore. He was saddened by that sudden thought; this woman, the woman he loved so much, would never bear his children. The thought was sobering. There was a touch of melancholy in his motions as he slowly dragged his face down until he was nuzzled in the brilliant red curls at the apex between her thighs. She shuddered again, this time letting out a tight gasp, and her hands reached down to grasp his shoulders, squeezing tightly. But none of his support helped her as she convulsed upon feeling the first touch of his lips on her most sensitive area. And when his tongue made its appearance, her hands dug into his skin so hard he knew she would break it at some point. "Mulder," she whispered breathlessly. "I don't think..." "Good," he said calmly. "Don't think." That shut her up. Not only was he touching her in an incredibly intimate way, he was touching her in a way that nobody had ever touched her. All the other men she'd been with-even Jack, much as she'd loved him at the time-had only wanted the sex to be over with; to have their own orgasm and have it quickly. Mulder...Mulder was the first to be focusing on her...and to be doing it in such a way that it left her trembling with incredible, all-encompassing need. Each time his tongue dipped inside of her, she was left shaking a little harder, feeling a little closer to dropping off the edge of sanity. "Mulder..." she whispered. "Mulder, please..." He didn't respond. Instead, he strengthened his efforts. She was soon shaking so hard she was sure she was going to collapse. And she knew if she came like this her knees would never be able to hold out... And then, just as she was in the process of attempting to think, it happened. She came so suddenly she didn't know it was happening until the first blinding wave of pleasure that was too intense to be called pleasure rippled through her body, giving out her knees just as she'd suspected it would. But he'd been ready, and the moment she started to buckle, her lips at the same time mangling a moan of his name, he was swiftly on his feet, his arms strongly holding her up, holding her tightly to him, allowing her to spasm in his arms, her arms wrapped tightly around his waist, her face buried in his chest. She was left gasping, choking for air. She'd never felt anything so incredible in all her life. It was enough to dwarf even the fear, even the hate, in comparison. It was enough to strengthen the love. Neither of them spoke; he just continued to hold her as she finished shaking, finished getting her breath back. They held each other like that for several long minutes, letting the shower spray wash over them. Then, without a word, she stepped back from him and picked up her sponge and body shampoo. Not looking at him, she poured some of the soap onto the sponge, squeezed it in, and started to soap down his front, her nimble hands able to go quickly but instead making slow, sensual work of it. Now he was the one trembling. She was exploring him in a wonderful way...a way that didn't seem like exploring. He concentrated on the feel of the sponge as it dragged over each individual muscle in his chest, his shoulders, his arms, his back; the feel of her fingers as they followed after, making sure that no place was left untouched. He closed his eyes as she sponged his legs, kneeling before him and then behind him, her hands working quickly. And when she'd finished, she came around to face him again...and stopped. He realized with a rush that she was observing him as he had her. She was looking directly at the strength of his erection standing proudly towards her, and the thought made him want to blush as she had more times in the last hour than he'd ever seen her do. After those quiet moments of her heated eyes taking him in, the sudden warmth of her hands and the sponge closing over the very thing she'd been staring at was enough to make him jump, shiver, and whimper all at once. He could almost feel the grin radiating off her face. Oh yes, she was getting him back all right. Her hands moved up and down and around, spreading liberally as she had everywhere else. He grew harder, larger, hotter in her hands, and infinitely more desperate, and if she noticed, which he knew she did, she didn't attempt to do anything about it. Just calmly stroked up and down, up and down. And then she was finished. Her hands were gone. He opened his eyes carefully and found her standing in front of him, the inevitable eyebrow cocked, one hand holding up the sponge for him to take if he wanted it. He grinned at her smugly, knowing perfectly well he'd been had, and took the sponge from her. She grinned back, but the grin quickly faded as her eyes became transfixed on his hands, which were working around the sponge, gathering up the lather on his own hands. When he finished, he reached forward slowly, tantalizing her to the last, and carefully touched his fingers to her shoulder, where he used very little force to turn her around. His hands were instantly massaging her back, using soap and water and his fingers to thread the knots out of her tense muscles. She groaned more often than he could count, and it was beautiful. After her back, he did her buttocks, her legs, and then he turned her around and did her belly, and then her breasts, listening to the quickening of her breath all along. Lastly, of course, he gave his attention to the part she would secretly be most focused on. His hand, freshly lathered with soap, trailed lazily down her belly and into her curls, then further down, causing her to stiffen against him, her hands instantly reaching out to grab his other arm, which was currently holding onto the wall for his own support, so that he could watch her every reaction this time. He watched her face carefully as he slid one finger down, touched her on her body's physical hot spot, then moved further down and, with the aid of the sliding soap, slid one finger, the longest one, deeply into her. She gasped loudly, her nails digging into his arm, and she dropped her face forward, nuzzling into his neck. He smiled. So, he wouldn't get to watch her face after all. Fine with him. Her breath was coming in quick little puffs now as he started to move the finger smoothly in and out, then replaced it with two fingers, continuing to move in and out, each time pressing further into her. He felt her breath against his neck and realized with a sudden burst just how erotic this situation was; this was like something out of one of his videos. Hm, interesting. It wasn't long before she stiffened then cried out against him again, and he once again held her in his arms while she shuddered, letting her know he was there. When she was finished, her breath shaky, she looked up at him, her eyes wide with what was now entirely desperate need. "Please, Mulder," she whispered simply, and he reached down and kissed her full on the lips, his tongue sliding past and into her mouth a moment later. And while he kissed her, while she was distracted, he reached down, taking her by the hips again, and carefully turned her until she was supported against the wall. And then, just as his tongue dipped to caress hers, he stepped forward, and, hands braced against the wall, pushed himself deeply inside of her, continuing to push in until he couldn't go any further. He swallowed her gasp gratefully, feeling her shuddering against him. He broke from her lips and looked into her eyes, which were now fogged over completely. She looked back at him, everything in her expression begging him. He smiled at her, and slowly pulled back, tantalizingly slowly, holding back for a moment before he slowly, slowly pushed back in. She moaned, shuddering against him again. Torture, pure torture. He moved in again. Out. In. Out. Slowly, slowly. Her gasp became a little harsher each time, her grip on his arms grew a little tighter. When she closed her eyes, when he felt her fingernails scraping against his forearms where she held him tightly, when her mouth dropped open and she moaned a low, breathless moan, he knew it was time to stop fooling around. He didn't warn her before he plunged, quickly, suddenly into her. Her eyes popped open and she cried out, her nails digging insistently into his skin. Her eyes met his, which were warm, and he leaned down and stopped her panting with a kiss. When he broke, she looked ready to go on. Now his strokes were quick, insistent, long and hard. She started to whisper something, and he leaned down so he could catch it, but it was completely incoherent to him, simple mutterings she was probably using to keep herself at least moderately aware. He came before her, in a sudden burst as she had earlier, and he buried his face in her shoulder to muffle his cries. As the first burst of his heated liquid seeped into Scully and trickled down her thighs, she came after him, turning her own face into his neck to hide her own whimpers. Breathing heavily, they gradually came back to themselves, and being careful not to destroy too much more of her equilibrium, Mulder carefully backed up, his hands coming down to hold her up by the elbows while he carefully pulled himself out of her. He watched her with something close to concern as she continued to lean against the wall, her eyes closed and her breath coming in a long, deep rhythm. But when she opened her eyes and met his, hers were smiling. He grinned back down at her. "So," he commented, simply, his voice hoarse. She reached forward and hugged him tightly. "I love you," she whispered into his skin, and he smiled and echoed her words. "You will never ditch me again, understood?" she said strongly as she finally let him free of the tight embrace. He looked down at her, smiling. "And you will never run away from your emotions, or mine, again, understood?" he said, and she smiled and nodded, though there was fear in her eyes. "I'll try," she said honestly. "I'll help," he assured her, and she smiled again. "And I will try to put my protective urges to rest...though I can't guarantee anything. But I won't ditch you anymore...and I certainly won't ignore you." "Good," she said, resting her head on his chest again. "Good." "We can get through this, Scully," he whispered, dropping his face to nuzzle it against hers. "We can. We're partners again." "We're whole again," she whispered back, and then he felt her smile in the way her lips touched his chest. "Thank you, Dana." She was whole again. ***** I don't believe that Elvis is dead, yeah I don't believe that Elvis is dead ***** THE END-Sorry for the crappy ending...I never can do good endings for this type of story. (sigh) 'Sometimes the only sane response to an insane world is insanity.' ***Feedback is always appreciated***Hell, I will kiss the ground at your feet for feedback***Flames will be used to feed my bored Basset Hound*** "The mistake was the jello shooters." "The *mistake* was the mosh pit." "No, the MISTAKE was going to a party held by the guys in forensic pathology." - Vic, Li Ann, and Mac, Once A Thief (A little joke that I find just perfect for Doctor Ice herself. )