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From krasch@delphi.com Thu Jan 23 22:54:57 1997
"If Wishes Were Horses" (1/3)
by Karen Rasch
krasch@delphi.com
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know I had said I wouldn't post a work in progress ever
again. But, I'm sooooo close to being finished with this baby that I think I
can risk it. Look for a part a day. I hope this doesn't make you guys too
nuts. :)
Okay. You should undoubtedly know from the onset that this is a
continuation of the universe I created with "Coming Back" and its
sequel, "The Calm After the Storm." If you haven't read those, you're
probably going to want to, as this builds on those tales, and without
them as back-story, makes little sense. I'm also playing fast and loose
with the whole XF timeline. If you're trying to place this in amongst
the actual XF episodes, figure it falls somewhere around mid-season
three.
So. Now that all that stuff is out of the way, you should probably
know what to expect here. :) This is a relationship story without
any NC-17 (no tying people to beds, no garter belts, no nothing <g>).
I would rate it PG-13 for language, but little else. You can count on
angst, UST, M & S talking, touching, and acting like friends.
And possibly *more*. ;)
These characters are in no way mine. They belong to the Big
Kahuna himself, Chris Carter, and the good folks at 1013 and Fox.
I just like taking them where I fear CC never will. (Although I *do*
have high hopes for the film.)
This story is for Charlotte, who asked first, and Michele, who asked
loudest.
Hope you guys like it. Thanks for all the support thus far. Please
don't be shy about sharing your thoughts with me again. You can find
me at the above address.
Just a side note. I had begun work on this almost immediately after
posting the last of "At a Loss". Then, I put it to the side while I got
"A Mother's Words" out in time for Christmas. Given what I've been
hearing about our upcoming "Scully Arc", I thought I better get
moving and get this one out to atxc before "Leonard Betts" airs this
week. Because according to what I *hear*, almost this entire story
will soon be "contradicted" by official canon.
Enjoy.
SUMMARY/ARCHIVING INFO: Mulder gets a late night call from
Scully. She has discovered something that has serious implications
regarding the mystery of her disappearance. Their ensuing discussion
takes their relationship somewhere it hasn't been before. This is a
continuation of the "Coming Back"/"Calm After the Storm" timeline.
I would consider it a SRA kinda tale. PG-13 in rating (for language).
********************************************************
As well as he knew his partner, as aware of her as he
recognized without question that he was, Fox Mulder would still not
have believed that he could identify her by the sound of her breath
alone.
And yet that had proven to be the case.
It had all begun late one Saturday night. He had snatched up
the telephone mid-ring, its surprise jangle having popped the bubble of
drowsiness that had slowly, subtly, been blown around him, beginning
sometime during the sports segment of the late news. Even before
any words had been spoken, the light whispered exhalation puffing
haltingly into his ear courtesy of Ma Bell had instantly cued him as
to the name and the face of the woman on the other end of the line.
And with that discovery, his lips had, as if by reflex, curled upwards
into a fond smile.
That affection, by necessity, lived. But never directly spoken
of.
Not to her.
Not by him.
That would only make their already complex relationship all
that much more complicated.
Far better to refrain from making the intangible concrete.
And yet, he would muse after the fact, perhaps it wasn't just
his admittedly hyper-sensitivity to Dana Scully that had aided with
his almost spooky recognition of her. Perhaps, the timing of her
call had helped as well.
After all, who the hell else would be calling him at ten till
twelve on a Saturday night?
It's wasn't as if the range of choices was vast. Mulder knew
better than anyone that he was a man whose existence encompassed
merely a handful of acquaintances, the pleasant sort of folks who drift
through a life. Whom you know by name. Whose roles--boss,
classmate, landlord--are of the stock variety; simply defined, easily
understood. Yet of whom, you know little else.
But, he had even fewer friends. The kind of people who
trust that their intruding upon your privacy in the middle of the
night will not be viewed as grounds for murder, but rather as cause
for concern. Which, of course, was what he had felt slithering through
him, cold and stealthy as a reptile, the moment that the unexpected
call and the possible reason for it had fully registered upon his psyche.
And that worry had only intensified when after he had
mumbled out his name, thus fulfilling his end of the standard telephone
greeting, nothing but silence had answered him.
Black, like a starless void.
Still, like the calmest of seas.
Except for the ever so faint buffeting of a woman's breath
against a telephone mouthpiece miles and miles away.
He tried again.
"Hello?"
This garnered a greater response. Nothing dramatic, nothing
overt. Just the slick sound of moisture, as if she might be licking her
lips, and a sharper, deeper intake of air which hinted, to Mulder's way
of thinking, that at long last Scully might finally be willing to speak.
"Mulder?"
Success.
"Scully. Hey, what's up?"
That's it, Mulder, he mentally encouraged himself. Keep it
light. Keep it upbeat. No need to let her know you're worried. No
reason to demand the answer as to why she felt she needed to call
you at an hour when she should have been in bed, asleep.
Or out.
With a man. Someone who deserved her. Who would treat
her properly. Who would recognize the jewel he himself knew his
partner to be.
But, Scully didn't have anyone like that.
Nor did he.
All they had was each other.
Still, that didn't give him the right to do what he'd like to do.
What he felt as if he needed to do. Desperately. That minute. To
shout down the phone line . . . .
Whatisit?Whyareyoucalling?What'swrong?Iseverythingallright?
Patience, instructed that perturbingly calm inner voice. Give
her time. Give her space. She'll get around to it when she's able.
When she feels as if she can. You know that the two of you can talk
out whatever it is that's bothering her.
After all, you've done so before.
That, they had. Ever since their near tragedy that past
autumn in the Adirondacks, these late night calls, while infrequent,
had become an unsettling addition to the routine of their joint lives.
Because now, rather than running blindly out into a
thunderstorm every time her shadowed past came back to haunt
her, Dana Scully called her partner.
As he had asked her to.
Hell, begged her to.
When they had returned home from upstate New York, he
had sat her down like a father with a recalcitrant child and had
gently, but unrepentantly, lectured her on the point.
"Listen, Scully. Now that I know about this . . . about your
dreams and . . the rest of it, I hope that you'll let me help."
She had smiled, the gentle curve of her lips somehow
simultaneously suggesting both sadness and her usual wry humor.
"I don't see how, Mulder," she had softly murmured with a
shrug and a small shake of her head. "Aside from being there for me
at the therapist's--something we've already discussed--I don't know
what else there is that you can do for me."
He had persisted. "Just . . . just let me be your friend, okay?
That's all I ask. I don't want to push you or anything. It's just . . .
It's like I told you at the cabin--I want you to know that you can
turn to me if you need to."
"Mulder--"
"I not saying that you can't do this on your own, Scully,"
he had hastened to assure her with a soft touch on her arm and a
phantom of a smile. "I'm only telling you that you don't have to if
you don't want to."
She had said nothing after that. Instead, she had merely sat
next to him on the over-stuffed sofa in her living room, her hands
clasped tightly in her lap, her blue eyes huge and moist in the pale
oval of her face. Finally, she had simply nodded.
And Mulder had let it go. Content for the time being.
Yet content was the last thing he felt that Saturday night.
Despite the careful cheeriness of his opening query, after several long
silent seconds, his partner still hadn't answered him. Mulder could hear
his heartbeat counting out the passage of time, its rapid thump urging
his blood to pound against his temples, the sound reverberating within
his head, low and hollow.
"Um . . . Mulder, are you doing anything?" she at long last
asked, her soft voice sounding to his critical ears like a bad forgery of
Scully's usually self-assured alto.
"No," he said instantly, sitting up a bit straighter on his couch
and rubbing his hand over his beard roughened face as if to banish
the fatigue that had already bedded down for the night on his features.
"No. Nothing. Just watchin' a little TV, that's all."
"Oh . . . . Well then, . . um . .do you think maybe you could
come over?"
That was a new request, he thought with a touch of dismay.
Normally, Scully called when she felt the need to talk. To reassure
herself. To with words chase away the nightmares that had been
plaguing her on and off for months. The ones that teased the woman
on the other end of the line with glimpses into what might have
happened to her when she had been torn from the fabric of his life
like threads being ripped from a tapestry. Leaving behind a hole that
no amount of mending could ever fully repair. Flashes that suggested
great pain. And even greater suffering. Snatches of memory,
impressions of events and emotions that tortured his friend. That
made her doubt herself, question her sanity.
Flashbacks which had ultimately proven devastating enough
to threaten her life.
"I'll be right there."
And so he sped through D.C.'s darkened streets, thankful
that last week's snowfall had all but vanished, leaving behind only a
few lumpy mounds of soot stained slush to line the thoroughfares.
The February wind was brutal, nipping with truly evil intent, its force
enough to shimmy his solid American made four-door as easily as if
it were a stripped down Yugo.
But this was nothing compared to what he had faced last
October, Mulder thought with a scowl as he stretched across the
dashboard to adjust the car's defroster. God. That night it had
seemed as if Mother Nature herself had been conspiring to keep
Scully from him. As if the very elements had joined forces with
Cancerman and the rest of his not-so-merry men.
Hmm, he mused with a twist of his lips. So, Mulder, are we
now looking at an innocent little cold front as an ally of the Big Bad
Man with the Morley, he questioned himself. Isn't that a bit
*paranoid*? Even for you?
Maybe.
Maybe not.
Christ. Some days it felt as if that withered old husk of a
man just might have that sort of influence. As if the stoop-shouldered
son of a bitch might actually possess that kind of power. Might, when
all was said and done, hold in his hands the fate of them all.
But, not Scully's.
Please God, not hers.
Anything else, he thought he could bear. But that outcome
was unimaginable.
Or perhaps that was the problem.
It was all =too= imaginable.
And it terrified him like nothing else.
It had been bad enough when she had been taken. When
she had disappeared like the flame from a match head. Gone. But
her warmth, her memory, yet alive. At least for him. The heat of that
stubborn ember still hot enough to burn.
That had been the worst, he had thought.
But then, she had been returned. Returned to =him=, that
nicotine fiend had told him, his tone at once both smug and matter-of-
fact. Yet, what had been the real reason Dana Katherine Scully had
been allowed to be reunited with those she loved?
Those who loved her.
Had it been a strangely timed act of mercy?
Or the cruelest of punishments?
Had her captors ever in their wildest imaginings believed
that she would, in the end, survive?
Mulder ruefully acknowledged that he had experienced his
share of doubts.
And as he had sat by her bedside, her small cool hand covered
by his own larger warmer one, her life force slowly being leeched away,
drained as easily it seemed as the blush from her cheeks, he had known
with the bitterest of certainties that he had been mistaken.
Having her taken from him had been bad.
But having her returned, like this, was far, far worse.
And yet, not the worst of all.
No. That had come later. Much later. After months had
been allowed to go by without incident, lulling them both into a false
sense of security.
Well, lulling him.
Scully hadn't been allowed quite that long a respite. She had
known that something had been wrong. And then had chosen to keep it
from him. While she had struggled on her own to hold it all together.
Jesus. Looking back, it seemed as if one thing after another
had pummeled his partner both physically and emotionally since her
disappearance. His supposed death in New Mexico. The discovery of
a mysterious metal chip embedded in her neck. The murder of her sister.
Hell, the death of her dog. Even that eerie meeting with the women in
Allentown who had claimed that they recognized her.
That they had been with her when she had been taken.
And finally, the dreams.
Mulder shook his head, his brow wrinkled with a kind of
disgust. Christ, it was relentless what Scully had been forced to put
up with over the past couple of years. What she had been made to
endure.
Yet in spite of it all, she had somehow still managed to find
the time to do her job. And not only to do it. But, to do it well. To be,
without fail, the wonderful uber-Scully he had come to know and love.
Doctor.
Government Agent.
And Fox Mulder's very own personal savior.
The dark-haired man guiding his nondescript sedan
swiftly through the capital's half-deserted streets didn't delude himself.
Since pairing with him, his partner had rescued him from far more
than the X-Files' usual rogue's gallery of mutants, monsters, and
mayhem.
She had saved him in ways she would probably never even
know.
Because Mulder doubted that he would ever find the courage
to tell her.
She had delivered him from loneliness.
Had prevented him from wantonly destroying his career.
Had served as his buffer with the Bureau's higher-ups;
protecting him from their suspicions, their scrutiny, their power-plays.
Had stubbornly trailed him when he had done his damnedest
to lose her.
Had fiercely believed in him when he himself had not.
Had refused to give him anything but the truth, no matter
how dearly he had wished at times that he might, in fact, be spared all
that honesty.
But at what cost?
What exactly was the price of being Fox Mulder's friend?
And why was Dana Scully willing to pay it?
After all, Mulder recognized that he was no bargain. He
tended to be moody. Difficult to know. Harder still to understand.
But, it seemed as if Scully didn't always feel the need to
ascribe specific motivations to his actions. To categorize him in
hopes of rendering him, his ideas, safe. Simple. Knowable.
Instead, as surprising as such behavior might appear to be
for a scientist, a woman defined by her desire to impose order on an
oftentimes apparently random universe, his partner was usually
willing to let him be. She didn't attempt to change him, or lay down
rules. When they disagreed--and they =did= disagree--it rarely turned
personal. They kept their discourse intellectual, the trading of theory
and counter-theory a sort of aerobic step class for the mind.
He couldn't claim to fully comprehend her readiness to
grant him this. But that didn't keep him from appreciating it. From
viewing such a bounty as precious.
Like the woman who had gifted him with it.
The woman whom he was breaking every speed law in the
District of Columbia to reach.
Before something far more unnerving than her admittedly
often unsettling partner reached out of nowhere and grabbed her first.
*********************************************************
The trip to Scully's usually took him about a half an hour.
Mulder made it in just under twenty minutes.
Wow, I guess all that talk about D.C. needing more cops on
the street is right after all, he mused as he jogged up the front steps
of her apartment building and into its hall.
Rapping softly on her door, he considered for a moment his
appearance. Not that he figured Scully would care much one way or
another. But, he had enough of an ego for such things to at times
skitter across his mind like a particularly pesky bug. Well, you know,
Mulder, it's not as if you can do much about that sort of thing at this
point anyway, remarked a sarcastic little voice somewhere deep inside
him. Taking a deep breath, he had to acknowledge the validity of the
observation. It was just that he had dashed out of the house without
paying much mind to the jeans, hi-tops, and black wool sweater he had
worn throughout that lazy Saturday. Hell, he had been in such a hurry,
it was a wonder that he had even remembered to grab his jacket on his
way out. Absent-mindedly, he ran his hand through his tousled hair
while he waited, aware even as he did so that the action in no way tamed
the mop atop his head. Oh well. Scully had seen him at far worse than
this, and lived to tell. He didn't imagine his five o'clock shadow would
in any way disgust or dismay her. More likely, she would simply arch a
brow at his rumpled form.
The mere thought of that familiar gesture and the woman who
had made it her signature brought another affectionate smile to his lips.
Which was how he greeted her when she opened the door
to her apartment.
"Hi," said the petite redhead before him, her voice soft, her
gaze shrouded by the harsh hallway light.
"Hey," he replied, leaning against the door jamb, his eyes
searching her face for any indication of distress. No tell-tale signs
immediately revealed themselves. She looked like she usually looked.
The same smooth ivory complexion. Same stubborn little chin. Her
bright hair had apparently been recently finger-combed. Her slight
figure stood clad in a pair of white leggings and a long loose shell-pink
sweater with matching socks. Her gleaming cross and chain encircled
her neck.
She looked lovely.
Just like always.
And yet, something about her was different. Some slight little
indefinable something that Mulder just couldn't quite put his finger on.
She seemed withdrawn from him somehow. As if she were enclosed
behind a Plexiglas barrier. Almost as if she were hidden there in plain
view.
"Come on in."
He nodded and stepped inside.
Mulder shrugged out of his coat as soon as he crossed the
apartment's threshold. Scully silently took it from him and walked
to the hall closet to hang it up. Her partner used the time to try and
assess the mood of the place, to quickly and furtively look for clues as
to how she had been spending her evening. To attempt to discern what
event might have prompted her invitation.
However, like his scrutiny of her physical appearance, his
initial scan of Scully's living room offered little in the way of answers.
The chamber was dark, its only illumination coming from the small
blaze crackling quietly in the fireplace hearth and the reading lamp
aglow at the far end of the sofa. His eyes strayed to her coffee table.
Atop it was a neat symmetrical arrangement of papers, pens, file folders,
and a lone legal pad. Everything appeared very tidy. Orderly. That
image carried through by the very civilized mug of still steaming tea
nestled in amongst the paperwork.
What was she working on, he wondered, his brow wrinkled in
consideration. They were between cases. She shouldn't have had any
homework demanding her attention.
"You want some tea?" she asked politely from just behind him.
"Coffee?"
"No. Thanks, I'm fine."
She nodded, her gaze not quite meeting his, the evasive quality
of the gesture increasing Mulder's concern. With a small inclination
of her head she led him to the couch. They sat, Mulder spotlighted by
the floor lamp, Scully at the other end of the sofa, in shadow.
"Thanks for coming so quickly," she murmured after a beat,
her fingers playing with the hem of her sweater, her legs drawn up
beneath her.
Mulder shrugged. "It's no big deal."
Her eyes engaged his, the look solemn. Sincere. "Still, I
appreciate it."
He nodded. When she said nothing more, he inquired
softly, "Enough to tell me why you called?"
The corner of her lips raised just a fraction, and she tucked
a piece of silky hair behind her ear. Leaning forward, she picked up
one of the folders before her and studied it, saying nothing. Her
fingers slid back and forth along its manila edge until Mulder
feared she'd inadvertently wind up giving herself a doozey of a paper
cut. The folder had on its tab a type of label he had never seen before.
He wished he were sitting close enough to read the writing upon it.
"I've been doing a little work this weekend," she said softly
after a time, her gaze still lowered, still focused on the item in her
hands. "A little reading I probably should have done a long time ago."
Mulder shook his head in mock disapproval. "You know
what they say about all work and no play, Scully."
Her lips quirked again. "Yeah. But, I've been accused of
that before."
"Not by me."
She looked at him then, her eyes steady and very blue.
"No, Mulder. Never by you."
Their shared regard held for a few strangely weighty
moments. Then, Scully's eyes dipped once more. "Anyway . . . I'd
been putting this off, you know? Avoiding it. And finally . . .
finally I decided that I'd waited long enough."
Mulder could hear echoes of the hours spent in Dr. Susan
Taylor-Jones' office, the therapist that Scully had been visiting once a
week since the incident at the cabin. The woman who was patiently
working with them both to unlock the secrets hidden away inside his
partner's subconscious.
An effort which had thus far proven maddening in the extreme.
Because despite all the talks, all the attempts at regression, all
the minute dissection of every tortured moment of Scully's nightmares,
little had been learned. She remembered light. She recalled being
restrained. Being subjected to a succession of alarming medical
procedures. She vaguely recollected seeing men bending over her;
men whose faces were covered by surgical masks, whose eyes were
cold and clinical.
And pain. She distinctly remembered pain. The sensation
so acute at times that it seemed as if the memory threatened to become
reality.
But little else.
And that lack frustrated Scully. Frustrated them both.
Because despite the discomfort, the awkwardness that these
sessions invariably provoked within him, Mulder had never missed one.
After all, he had made a promise.
One he intended to move heaven and earth, if necessary, to
keep.
Dr. Taylor-Jones kept reassuring her increasingly troubled
patient. Don't worry, she told her. These things take time. You must
be patient. Just remember, it's important that this work not only take
place here, in this office, once a week. You have to live this. To open
yourself up to remembering. Try to tear down those barriers when you
feel them rising up. When something sparks an awareness in you, makes
you think that it just might have some significance, don't let it frighten
you. Embrace it. I know it's hard, but don't run away from the things
that make you feel vulnerable. You're going to have to allow yourself to
feel that way, Dana, to get past this. You're just not going to be able
to do it with all your usual defenses in place.
Dr. Taylor-Jones was good. She had come highly
recommended. Nothing but the best for his partner, Mulder thought
with a touch of sardonic humor. But, she asked a lot from those in her
care. She wasn't content with letting them lope along, maintaining the
status quo. She pushed them. Gently, carefully, like a mother holding
on to her child's first two-wheeler. Guiding, supporting, but always
ready to let them go on their own. When they were able.
Mulder knew that Scully liked her psychologist. Respected
her. And as much as it frightened her, she tried her damnedest to do
as Dr. Taylor-Jones instructed.
So he suspected that whatever the hell this reading was that
Scully had supposedly been *avoiding*, it must have something to do
with her abduction.
But the folder in her hand didn't look like the actual X-File
bearing her name.
So, what the hell was it?
Almost as if sensing his silent question, Scully continued.
"It took some doing, but I contacted Northeast Georgetown. I got
them to release my records. All the files documenting my condition . . .
the tests, the treatment I underwent . . . all of it. What you see here
is all the information available regarding my physical state when I
was first brought back."
Mulder slowly nodded, a cold tendril of dread inexplicably
creeping its way up his spine, his elbow braced against the back of the
sofa, his chin balanced on the heel of his hand. "Why?"
She shrugged. "To know. To understand. I had never
really looked into what was done to me, Mulder, when I was taken.
Never asked how I had come to be the way I was when they found me
in that hospital. I'm a doctor. That should have been one of my first
questions. But it wasn't. Isn't that weird?"
"No," he said hoarsely, his hand rubbing restlessly now over
his mouth, his chin. "No, that's not weird at all."
Why would she want to dwell on that when the doctors had
given her a clean bill of health?
Christ.
Once she had awakened, safe and well, it was a subject he had
made a point of avoiding with the same sort of vehemence with which
he dodged soft rock radio stations.
She dipped her head, her eyes shadowed with remorse. "I
should have asked, Mulder. You would have."
He just looked at her.
"So that's what I did," she said with a kind of false brightness,
that unseen barrier brittle, yet intact. "Finally. I read through this
stuff today. Tonight. Read through it and asked, 'What exactly did those
bastards do to me?'."
"And what did you find?"
She hesitated. Then smiled, the expression devoid of humor.
Her eyes again seemed drawn to the folder clutched so tightly in her
hands.
"Not what I thought I would."
Mulder's heart fell down a chute and landed at his toes.
"=What=, Scully?"
She looked up. At him. Yet didn't speak. Mulder wanted
to grab her. Shake her. Force her to tell him what she had learned.
Because he knew, felt with absolute certainty, that an epiphany had
been experienced by his partner that night. A revelation.
And the fact that she was having difficulty putting it into
words scared the shit out of him.
Still saying nothing, Scully scooted forward on the couch and
laid the mysterious folder on the coffee table. Then, scouting through
one of the numerous piles of papers, she withdrew a large gray envelope
from the bottom of the stack. Remaining silent, she reached in, pulled
out an x-ray of what appeared to be a person's spine and handed it to
him.
"What's this?" he asked, his eyes intent on the film before him.
"Me," she said simply. "Or rather, my torso."
He nodded, his attention yet focused on the skeleton in his
hands. "What am I looking for?"
"You won't find anything."
"What do you mean?" he asked as he raised his eyes to look at
her once more, puzzlement and more than a bit of impatience evident in
his tone.
Scully took a deep breath and wrapped her arms around her
knees so that she sat curled on the couch in a little ball. "What's
important about that x-ray isn't what's there, but what isn't."
"Scully--"
"Look at the nape of my neck, Mulder," she instructed in a
tightly controlled voice, her eyes seemingly more interested in the
pattern of her sofa's upholstery than on the item in question, her
shoulders rigid. "Look, and tell me what you see."
He did as she asked. "I don't know . . . I'm no doctor, Scully.
I . . . I don't see anything."
"No. You don't, do you," she said softly in agreement, her
brow creasing at her words.
"I don't understand."
"The implant, Mulder," she said finally, her eyes at long
last pinned on his. "It isn't there."
His mind whirred, like the gears wouldn't quite catch. "I don't--"
"If it wasn't there when they brought me back, then that means
that it had to be put in later," she explained quietly.
"Put in later, =how=?" Mulder queried, the pieces beginning
to fall into place, constructing a jigsaw puzzle conceived by the very
creator of nightmares himself. "=When=?"
Scully nodded ever so slightly. "Those are the questions I've
been asking myself all night. And no matter how I look at them, which
words I use, I only come up with one answer."
"What?" he asked, the single word sounding as if it were going
to crumble to dust as it left his lips.
"I've been taken again, Mulder," she whispered, her hands
clutching at each other so tightly that he feared she was cutting off
all circulation to her fingers. "I don't know how and I don't know
when, but my abduction wasn't a one-time thing."
"You can't be sure--"
"And if that's the case, then how do I know that it won't just
keep on happening? That they won't keep coming for me, taking me
again and again, until I wind up like those women in Allentown?"
* * * * * * * * *
Continued in Part II
"If wishes were horses, beggars might ride." John Ray (1627-1705)
"English Proverbs"
From krasch@delphi.com Sat Jan 25 16:53:53 1997
"If Wishes Were Horses" (2/3)
by Karen Rasch
krasch@delphi.com
Sorry this is a bit late. This is my fifth attempt to post this one. Neither
Delphi or AOL would let me through. Hope you like it so far. The
conclusion will be posted as soon as it's done.
Oh, and Juliettt? You're absolutely right--you had asked about another
"Coming Back" story as well.
So this is also for you. :)
All disclaimer/intro stuff in Part I. All mail can be directed to the
above address. I will catch up as soon as this story is posted in its entirety.
Thanks very much.
*********************************************************
"Scully, there must be some mistake," Mulder muttered, his
brow deeply creased as he searched the x-ray for the tiny object that
ought to have been there, but was not. "Maybe this was taken at a
weird angle or something. Maybe they just missed it."
She chuckled mirthlessly. "You haven't read through these
files like I have, Mulder. Dr. Daly and his staff didn't miss anything.
Believe me, they were very, very thorough. Judging by what I found
in these records, their efforts to save my life were nothing short of
heroic. If the chip was there, they would have found it."
"But you don't *know* that," Mulder insisted, his ire still
piqued after all this time by the way Daly had so willingly acceded to
Scully's own wishes and withdrawn life support from her comatose
form. "Doctors are just as human as the next person, Scully. They
make mistakes."
"Yes, they do," she agreed, the words spoken in a low clipped
voice. "But an entire team of specialists, nurses, technicians and God
only knows how many other assorted medical personnel are not =all=
going to miss an object that the Bureau physician was able to detect
with merely a cursory surface exam. Face it, Mulder. Daly and his
associates failed to find the chip because it was not there for them to
find."
Mulder glared at her, unable to come up with a suitable
argument, and yet still unwilling to concede the point. Because to do
that was to admit to the existence of horrors he was simply not ready
to confront.
"It makes sense if you think about it," Scully continued softly
after a breath or two, her eyes straying from his at last. "I mean . . .
we had done so much traveling between the time I was returned and . .
New Mexico. Didn't you ever wonder why that thing in my neck had
never set off any sort of airport security? Why it was only discovered
that day I *happened* to go through the front door at the Hoover
Building."
"No," he croaked out, his hand running wearily now through
his already tousled hair. "No. I never did."
And the truth was, he hadn't. He hadn't allowed himself to
wonder, to muse over the ramifications of what might have been
done to her when she had been taken. Instead, he had tucked such
questions away. Hidden them deep in the furthest reaches of his
consciousness. The bottom line was: he simply hadn't wanted to know.
Hadn't wanted to deal with the consequences. Not even when his
partner had come to him with stories of the Tupperware party from
hell. How she had come face to face with a group of women in
Allentown, Pennsylvania who had claimed that not only did they know
her, but that she, like they, was an alien abductee. That, despite her
protests, her stubborn avowals that these women were strangers to her,
she was actually a member of their sisterhood. Was, in fact, like them.
Exactly like them.
Right down to the fact that their number were all slowly
dying of an insidious cancer. A cancer that was resistant to all
treatment. A disease that would, if their theories held true, one day
steal Scully's life just as utterly, as painfully as it had taken the life of
Betsy Hagopian.
And what had he said when made aware of this danger?
But, you're fine, aren't you, Scully?
Christ.
And then, after hearing his partner numbly mumble an
affirmative reply, he had crossed away from her to the office fax
machine and retrieved a message.
Just like that.
Case closed.
Back to business as usual.
And Scully's fucking bastard of a partner hadn't so much
as offered her a hug of reassurance.
And yet, he =couldn't=. Much as he suspected that such
support would have been welcome, at that moment he just couldn't
bring himself to offer it to her. Couldn't trust himself to even touch her.
Because holding her in his arms, warm and slight and sweetly scented,
would have been far too much to have borne at that point in time. He
would have been brought all too painfully face to face with the reality
of the situation. The knowledge that Scully's small soft body might
hold within it a time bomb. A mine of sorts, that when tripped would
tear her from his arms with stunning and absolute finality.
No.
Keep it in the abstract. Closet the fear in the world of might
and maybe and probably not.
"How are you?" Mulder finally asked, doing his damnedest to
banish the memories that cruelly poked and pricked at his conscience
like silent accusers, his voice gruff yet intent.
She understood that his question was far from merely an idle,
polite sort of query. "I'm okay. I've been going in every six months or
so to be checked, and so far nothing unusual has been detected."
He nodded, a kind of feverish relief in his eyes. "So you're
all right."
"For now."
That wasn't what he wanted to hear.
"What do you mean?" he asked quietly, even as the answer
rose up like a leviathan, breaking through the waves, swamping the
fragile ship that was his peace of mind, his sanity.
"I mean that while I'm okay now, who knows when that may
change," Scully said with such a calm, reasonable tone of voice that it
was all Mulder could do to keep from pinching her just to get a response.
After all, they weren't discussing the weather, or how they should best
explain to Accounting the latest expense report they had sent up. Or
even how something like multiple abductions might, in the end,
affect some poor anonymous someone.
They were talking about her.
Her life.
Her possible death.
And Scully was sitting there in the corner of her sofa all cozy
and serene, her mug of tea now cradled in hands. Looking for all the
world as if she were auditioning for a role in one of those warm and
fuzzy coffee commercials.
By contrast, Mulder found himself, much to his mortification,
having begun ever so slightly to tremble. The movement barely
noticeable, yet unnerving. The overall effect was equal perhaps to a
bad case of caffeine jitters. But it was making it hard for him to think.
His entire body, all his organs, his bloodstream, his skin, all of it felt
as if something were shooting a low level of electricity through him.
He could sense it. Humming. Coursing through him. Urging
everything to function just the tiniest bit faster than it should have.
His heartbeat.
His breath.
Everything but his head. His brain. He just couldn't process.
It seemed as if he could barely hear. Not over the buzzing. The
incessant low level noise that was drowning out everything.
Even Scully.
Who was speaking once more.
"--trying to figure out when they might have gotten to me,"
she was saying, murmuring in a hushed voice, her words quick, precise.
"When they could have taken me without my realizing it. It seems as
if it would have been easiest for them to accomplish it when I was
incapacitated in some way. In the hospital or injured or something.
But other than that quarantine after the whole Firewalker incident, I
didn't really have any downtime. And I don't think they would have
had the opportunity then. After all, you were with me."
Yes. He had been. Had literally slumbered by her side
during all those weeks that the two of them were alone save for a
platoon of biohazard experts in moon suits. He had nodded off to
sleep at night lulled by the sound of her breath, soft and constant
from the bed alongside his, the privacy curtain hanging between their
two bunks never pulled. He had laid there in the velvet blackness of
their containment room and endlessly replayed in his head those
last frightening moments inside the volcano. The infinite minutes
when he had known that Scully was in danger of unwittingly being
exposed to a hitherto unknown variety of spore. An entity that would
mature inside her, ultimately ripping its way to adulthood through
the base of her throat. And he had stood there, rooted in place by the
gun that had been aimed squarely at his head, before finally telling
the man who held it; a man who reminded him all too much of
himself, "Well then, you're going to have to shoot me. Because I'm
walking out of here."
And walk out, he had.
To return to Scully's side.
"--means that whoever put this thing in my neck did so
when I was here. At home. I mean . . . you don't think they would
have been able to take me when we were on the road, do you?"
"No," he mumbled automatically, his mind still wrapped
around scenes set months before, his eyes clouded and only able to
steal sidelong glances at hers. "I don't."
"No," she agreed with a tiny nod, focusing, it seemed, on
the deep amber depths of her tea. Her head was bowed, its crown
pointing in his direction. Her soft coppery hair fell forward to
frame her cheeks like hands.
And for just one crazy moment, Mulder wished it was his
palms instead that rested against her skin.
"That seems unlikely. Too many variables. Too many
unknowns they wouldn't have been able to foresee, to control," Scully
continued quietly, oblivious to the decidedly unpartner-like urges
currently winding their way through the heart and mind of the man
with whom she worked. "Here at my apartment they would have been
able to get a sense of the rhythms of the place. Of my neighbors'
schedules. Of mine. No. They took me from here. That makes more
sense."
And it did, he realized with a rush. In a sick sort of way, it
did. Taking her from a hotel room, with him housed just next door,
would be far too risky for whoever the hell it was who was perpetrating
this abomination, especially given his sleep patterns. Plus, as agents
they would tend to be more on guard while on the job, more attuned to
danger. At home, Scully's defenses would be down. She would be
vulnerable.
Easy pickings.
"Mulder?"
He mentally shook himself free from his increasingly tortured
musings and focused on his partner. She sat pressed against the arm
of the sofa, her blue eyes trained at last on him, grave and oddly dry.
"It's men who have been taking me," she whispered, her
gaze haunted but resolute, her words formed very carefully. Almost
as if another sentence was balanced there just behind her lips, waiting
to slip out when she wasn't looking.
"Men, Scully?" he challenged softly; his voice, a mere rattle
of sound. "What men?"
She shook her head, her eyes leaving his to regard instead
the mountain of evidence testifying as to her plight. "I don't know.
I don't know who. Maybe those doctors who were involved with the
experiments on the lepers. Maybe the Japanese. Maybe not. I don't
know for sure."
Mulder understood what Scully was doing. Recognized that
she felt the need to put some kind of limits on the horror she had so
innocently uncovered. To in some way control a situation that at that
moment seemed so desperately out of control.
Hell. Abduction and violation by an evil human adversary
was unthinkable enough.
But, the same sort of abuse from an all-powerful alien
entity; a monster straight out of a Saturday afternoon creature feature . . .
How was a person supposed to live with that threat looming
over them like a guillotine's blade?
After all, who was the guilty party? What was the identity of
their foe?
Where could he hide her? Where could she flee?
The next time they took her, would another cold chip of metal
be imbedded somewhere on her person?
Or would the sons of bitches ever even return her at all?
And if these questions were twisting inside his brain, coiling
and hissing like snakes, what in God's name must she be thinking?
What new nightmares had that weekend's work wrought?
"I've been thinking about what I should do now, you know?"
she murmured after their shared silence had stretched between them to
the breaking point, her voice small and shot full of holes. "How I
should go on."
"What do you mean?" he asked, folding his arms across his
chest so that his hands were tucked between his biceps and his sides
in an effort to hide their trembling.
She shrugged, her eyebrows lifting in tandem. "I don't know.
I, um . . . I just . . I need to figure out how to live with this."
For some inexplicable reason, her words made him angry.
Furious. Enraged. How to *live* with this? Why the hell should she
have to live with this? What had Scully done to deserve living out her
days as a kind of human lab rat?
"I mean . . . I don't imagine moving would help," she
continued with a humor-free chuckle, choosing not to look at him as
she placed her still nearly full mug of tea back on the paper laden coffee
table. "I guess I could go ahead and install a security system. But, you
know . . . the building is already supposed to have one. And it hasn't
stopped them so far."
Mulder's stomach churned as if he were aboard a hurricane
tossed ship. His once subtle shuddering had started to feel like the
advanced stages of palsy. Even the tender space behind his eyes had
begun to throb. Burn. Sharply. The pain almost blinding. Stealing his
sight in exactly the same way the tears he felt poised to fall intended to.
God. He yearned to simply lower his lids against the ache and
escape into sleep. Maybe this was all a dream. After all, it was late,
right? Maybe Scully had never even called in the first place. Maybe
this was all just a figment of his warped psyche. Maybe his conscience
was merely paying him back for all the times he had treated Scully so
thoughtlessly. Had deserted her. Endangered her. Taken her for
granted.
But no.
Not even his dreams were this twisted.
"I'm kind of at a loss, Mulder. You know? It's hard to come
up with a plan when you don't even know who you're fighting. Or even
why anybody would want to take me to begin with. I mean . . . I wonder
what they hope to gain."
Don't do this, Scully, he longed to beg her. Don't give up.
Don't just sit there and accept this. Don't try to fit this insanity into
your life as readily, as meekly, as if someone had simply rescheduled an
appointment on you.
She kept talking, the faintest hint of panic now seeping through
her calm facade to underlie her tone. And yet, he knew that only someone
with the sort of intimate knowledge of her that he possessed would ever
recognize that she was experiencing distress. She still appeared wholly
composed. Her face, unlined. Her voice, even and well modulated.
Only the machine gun rhythm of her words gave her away.
That, and her eyes.
Oh, Scully wasn't crying. No. That urge seemed to live only in
him. Instead, her deep blue orbs reminded him of the eyes of those
who still made their home on the streets on Sarajevo, amidst the rubble
and the snipers. Those whose possessions had been wiped out by tornado
or flood. Those who stood patiently in line at relief stations in Ethiopia
and Somalia, waiting for a crumb of food; living, breathing, skeletons
whose true identities were not disguised one bit by the skin covering
their bones.
People who had been pushed past their limits of endurance.
Human beings who continued to function; but who did so
only out of habit. Not because they wanted to, or even needed to. But
because their bodies would allow them no other choice. No way out,
save self-destruction. Their hearts went on beating. Their lungs
expanded and contracted, pulling in air almost against their will. And
so, they carried on. They survived.
That's what Mulder saw in Scully's eyes.
And the anguish and terror that sight invoked threatened to
consume him.
Like fire did dry tinder.
Leaving behind nothing of his heart but ashes.
"--can't stop them, then I need to come up with a way to
sleep at night. I'm not sure I can close my eyes now that I know that
someone somewhere is waiting for me to do just that so they can take
me again."
You don't know that we can't stop them, he silently railed.
We haven't even tried. Hell, we didn't even know that this was a
problem until a few hours ago. We'll think of something. We always
do.
But, with the irony which had long ago convinced him that if
there was a God he had one hell of a sense of humor, Mulder found
he had totally lost the function of speech. When confronted with
Scully's rapid-fire outpouring of fear and stoic acceptance, he had in
some way been struck dumb. Utterly. Sure, he had arguments; words
of encouragement, of support. But, they had all somehow gotten bottled
up inside of him. He wanted to say something to her. Desperately. To
soothe her. Reassure her.
But nothing was forthcoming.
And Scully just kept on talking.
"You know, it's not the dying that scares me, Mulder," she
whispered, her voice finally cracking a bit under the strain. "I mean . . .
that's what this will probably lead to, right? Like those women. Like
Betsy Hagopian."
Mulder's throat closed. The buzzing continued unabated
between his ears. And yet it no longer blocked out her words like once
it had.
Like he prayed to God it would now.
"It's funny. Even after they'd told me about the cancer . . .
about how they all had it, I still didn't really think it had anything to
do with me. After all, they'd claimed that they had each been taken
repeatedly. And I . . . I had only gone missing that one time."
/Stop it./
"It's not . . . I . . . don't get me wrong. I don't want to die."
/Please, Scully./
"But that's not the worst of it."
/I'm begging you./
"It's the taking," she mumbled, her arms wrapped tightly
around her middle, her eyes at long last welling with moisture and
averted from his. "That's what really bothers me. I can't . . . it's the
helplessness, I think. You know, . . that's one of the few things I
truly remember. All those regression sessions, all those nightmares.
And the thing that sticks with me the most is the feeling, . . the
sensation of having absolutely no control. Not over my life. My body.
Nothing. It was . . . It felt like what I imagine rape must feel like.
You become a thing. Not a person."
/I know that, Scully. I do. I know what that means to you.
How important control is to you./
"In a way, I suppose I should be grateful," she said with a
little lift of her chin, her eyes blinking to chase away the tears that
she had somehow still managed to contain. "You know, I look through
all these records, and I'm . . . amazed. I don't see how I survived."
"You were lucky," he mumbled suddenly, thrilled that he
had once again learned to form words. Yet annoyed beyond all belief
that all he could come up with were those three feeble examples.
She looked at him for a beat, considering him and his
comment. Mulder couldn't fathom what might have prompted it, but
it appeared that for some odd reason the corners of her lips lifted ever
so slightly. Then, as swiftly as her expression had altered, it shifted
once more. And settled into a smooth placid mask. Finally, she
whispered, "I was. I was lucky."
God. It had come to this. The woman considered herself
lucky to be plucked from her bed by unseen forces and experimented
upon.
When had the world gotten so incredibly fucked up?
She bowed her head again, her eyes trained on the hands in
her lap. "I guess when you come right down to it, Mulder, the past
year or so has been sort of like borrowed time. Maybe I wasn't meant
to have survived being taken. Maybe I should just be thankful to have
been given the extra months."
Thankful? She thought she should be =thankful=?!
"No." For an instant, Mulder was surprised to hear the word
aloud. He had thought it echoed only inside his head.
She continued on as if she hadn't heard him. "I mean, I've
had a good life. Good family. Good friends. A career I love. I don't
have many complaints. . . ."
"No," he repeated, this time more strongly. Vehemently.
She didn't notice. "I can do this. You know? I'm not afraid
to die. . . ."
His hand reached out and gripped the back of her sofa as if
he thought to strangle it, to squeeze the stuffing free, to split the
furniture's seams. "Stop it."
"I just worry about what this will do to my mom. She's
already lost so much. . . ."
"Scully, =stop it=."
"First, my dad. Then, Melissa . . ."
"Enough."
"I just don't want her to be alone. . . ."
And then something within Mulder snapped. So violently,
that he almost imagined he could hear the pop. Moving with a speed
that surprised even him, he stretched across the scant distance
separating his partner from him, grabbed Scully by the shoulder and
pressed his other palm to her mouth, the motion rough and poorly
executed. Her head flew back.
And all at once the room fell silent.
For a moment, they simply looked at each other, her eyes
meeting his over the edge of his hand, overflowing at last with the
moisture he had glimpsed there earlier, the droplets splattering on his
knuckles and wrist, scalding his skin. While his tears, with that same
irony Mulder had noted before, dried up like a puddle in the Sahara;
shamed into oblivion by the sorrow of someone who had far more cause
for weeping than he.
At first, they simply waited, as if unsure how to proceed. Their
knees almost touching. Their breath coming in hurried little pants, the
cadence uneven. Not certain why he felt the need to do so, Mulder
brought his face close enough to Scully's for tiny flyaway tendrils of
her hair to tickle his cheeks. She didn't fight him. Didn't struggle at
all. Instead, she merely sat, unmoving. Her eyes peering up at him,
wide and liquid in the room's meager light.
"Don't, Scully," Mulder entreated after a time, his voice husky
and urgent. "Please, . . . just . . =don't=. Okay?"
And yet, she didn't move. No nod. No attempt to speak.
Nothing.
Gently, he removed his hand from her mouth. Remaining
still, she let her tongue slip out from between her lips to moisten them,
almost as if she were hoping to somehow taste him or some memory of
his touch. Unbidden, Mulder felt something tighten inside him like
a vice.
He couldn't quite figure out whether the sensation radiated
from his heart or from his groin.
Choosing not to dwell on it, he stretched out his hand and
smoothed his thumb along the curve of her cheek, tracing her delicate
profile. Scully kept her eyes on him, her regard solemn and unwavering.
"I'm sorry," he murmured, his fingertips now trailing up to
her temple, her hairline. The tremors he could still feel rippling
through him conspiring to keep his touch light, halting.
Scully closed her eyes for a moment and leaned a bit unsteadily
into his caress, the lowering of her lashes prompting another cascade of
tears.
"You're trembling," she whispered, her eyes yet hidden from
view.
"I know," he said just as softly, his fingers gliding over her
brow, through her hair. Softness. Everywhere was softness. And
warmth. Heat.
Life.
"Are you scared?"
He hesitated just a moment, his hand at last gently cradling
her jaw. "Yes."
Her teeth snagged her lower lip. Eyes still shut, she took in a
long, shaky breath before quietly admitting, "So am I."
And before he had even fully realized what he was doing,
Mulder bent forward the few remaining inches between them, and
covered her mouth with his.
* * * * * * * *
Continued in Part III
"If wishes were horses, beggars might ride." John Ray (1627-1705)
"English Proverbs"
From krasch@delphi.com Mon Jan 27 06:27:53 1997
"If Wishes Were Horses" (3/3)
by Karen Rasch
krasch@delphi.com
Here we go again. I should probably warn you that things *do* heat
up a bit in this installment. Believe me, it's nothing compared to some
of the other stuff I've written. And yet, some folks appreciate knowing
what they're in for. I'm still sticking with my PG-13 rating. Speaking of
which--All ratings, acknowledgments, disclaimers in Part I. Thanks. In
particular to those of you who alerted me to the posting problem I had
with part II. Isn't this whole Internet thing supposed to be user-friendly . . ?
**********************************************************
During all the countless hours that Fox Mulder would later
devote to reliving this particular moment in his life--this turning point--
in all its Technicolor glory, he would often ask himself one simple
question . . .
Why?
Why had he chosen to take that fateful step?
What was it that had prompted him to consider the familiar
platonic nature of his partnership with Dana Scully; the comfortable,
well-defined friendship they enjoyed. Then chuck it. Toss it into the
fire like a hand full of pine needles, and watch years of care and
restraint go up in smoke.
For someone with as acute a mind as he, the query should
have been easy enough to answer. After all, he had solved far tougher
mysteries in his day.
And yet, despite all the introspection, all the analysis, all the
replaying of the events leading up to that instant, he knew deep down
inside that no matter how long or how hard he considered the point,
in the end he would undoubtedly never be able to pin down precisely
why he had all at once decided to kiss her.
Because if he was completely honest with himself, he had to
concede that decision and choice had never really entered into it.
Mulder had once told Scully that he believed that fate had
played a role in their lives. That certain things had happened to them;
certain events--some tragic, some miraculous--that neither of them had
ever really had a prayer of influencing or controlling.
That simple kiss, their first, had been like that for him.
He had sat there; Scully's flushed face nestled in his palm, her
eyes swimming with tears. His heart feeling as if had been used as a
kind of makeshift punching bag. Fear and sorrow and a half a dozen
other utterly wrenching emotions coursing through him . . .
And there had been nothing else for him to do.
The kiss had been inevitable.
Like the path of the sun.
The changing of the seasons.
The passing of time.
Odd really.
After all, how long had he mused over what it might be like
to press his lips to hers? How often had he wondered what she might
taste like? Feel like. How many years had he longed to learn the
answers to those questions, only to discard the notion before a plan to
make the dream a reality had ever fully flowered.
You can't think of your partner in that way, Agent Mulder,
intoned that little voice that sounded suspiciously like his father, his
mother, his high school basketball coach, Skinner, and his favorite
Oxford don all rolled into one. Giving in to that desire will only
complicate matters.
Bullshit.
There was nothing complicated about it.
Kissing Scully was the easiest thing in the world.
She gasped when their lips met, a quick startled little hiss of
sound that buzzed against his mouth like a bumblebee. And yet, she
didn't start. Didn't pull away. Instead, she held herself very still.
Poised. All her senses alive, it seemed, and attuned to him. Alert and
ready. Waiting, as if to see what would happen next.
Mulder wished that he could provide an answer for her.
Unfortunately, he was making it up as he went along. Improvising like
Robin Williams in the midst of a riff. At first, he just touched his lips
to hers. Lightly. Almost reverently.
Pressed.
Released.
Brushed across.
Over.
Drew apart.
But not for long.
"Scully," he whispered, his eyes closed, his mouth hovering
over hers, having pulled back only far enough for his lips to form the
word. No more. He didn't know why he had murmured her name. He
had just wanted to. Needed to. It felt so good on his lips. His tongue.
Almost as good as she did, herself. Maybe he was asking her permission.
Or perhaps he was looking for confirmation, for reassurance that she
wanted this as badly as he.
Then she brought her lips to his. All on her own.
And he knew it was okay.
Oh my God, she's kissing me, Mulder thought with a kind of
giddy dumbstruck amazement. Dana Scully--the serious professional;
the unattainable brainy beauty; the brave wounded woman who never
failed to inspire, encourage, and impress him was caressing him with
her lips.
And suddenly he felt as if he had been thrown back in time
to the days before his voice had lost the upper half of its register. Oh
man. He was back to trembling.
Only this time, he had few complaints regarding the cause of
the tremors shimmering through him.
Her mouth was so warm, so soft. It clung to his, tender as
rose petals. Slanting first one way, then another. Gliding along. Lips
gently parted and moist. In no hurry. Just tasting. Sampling. Open
to the sensation. The rightness of it.
And damn it--it =was= right. This. This closeness. This
intimacy. It might have grown out of the worst possible scenario, the
most frightening of revelations. But that in no way cheapened the act
or what it symbolized. On the contrary. Instead, it made the whole
thing seem all that much more precious. Somehow, in the midst of their
shared suffering something good, something wonderful had found a way
to flourish; the same way that delicate yet stubborn little bits of plant life
often poke their way through concrete, in defiance of cities and of men.
And even as he mused over the imagery, Mulder acknowledged
to himself that he would be damned if he'd let anyone or anything
trample that fragile sprig of greenery into dust.
Sliding still closer to her, he gently tugged Scully into his
arms. She came to him softly. Easily. Leaning against him. Fully.
Her breasts pressed firmly against his chest. Her head pillowed by his
shoulder. Her arms wrapped tightly around his neck.
Encouraged by her tacit acceptance of his overtures, Mulder
took the lead in their kiss once more as well. Carefully, he swept his
tongue along the opening of her mouth. His touch like a brushstroke
on fresh canvas. Moist and slow. She moaned, the sound low and
rather helpless. Her tiny murmur of pleasure sent his pulse rate skyward.
He couldn't wait any longer. Taking a deep breath, he plunged his
tongue into her mouth. Ran it over her teeth, the inside of her cheeks.
She matched his caresses stroke for stroke. Rubbed along him. Traced
the shape of his mouth. Suckled on his tender lower lip. Nibbled on
it. Mulder heard a whimper.
Did it come from him?
He didn't know. His head was fuzzy with arousal. He couldn't
think. Didn't want to think. What good was thinking? It seemed to
Mulder as if thinking, reasoning, held little promise at that moment.
After all, if he slowed down and considered their situation; what had
already occurred to get Scully and him to this moment and what they had
to look forward to from here on, he would have put aside all this lovely
closeness. Instead, he would need to come up with a plan; a way to protect
Scully, to track down her kidnappers, to assure that whatever the hell they
had done to her in no way affected her health. No. Feeling was so much
better. Feeling like this.
Restless. Jumpy.
Yet, languid. Relaxed.
Warm. Heated.
Swollen.
Oh God.
Feeling Scully's slim soft body draped against his larger firmer
form was fast stealing any ability he might once have had to form
thoughts. Arguments. Plans. All he wanted to do was pull her closer.
Wrap himself around her. Dive inside her. Merge.
With rapidly increasing urgency, he smoothed his hands
over her body. Through her hair. Across her shoulders. And down her
back. She twisted and twitched beneath his ministrations, her breathing
choppy and shallow. She wasn't trying to get away. Oh no. Rather, she
seemingly yearned to deepen his caresses. To prompt him as to which
places were the most needy. The most sensitive. Emboldened by the
knowledge that Scully apparently trusted him with her body in the same
way she had always trusted him with her safety, Mulder did his best to
follow her directions.
Gasping now himself, he finally managed to pull away from
Scully's bewitching mouth to instead rain kisses on her cheeks. To dot
her chin, her brow. To nuzzle her neck; taste it with his tongue.
His hand swept around and up her side, finding her breast
through the fine supple knit of her sweater. He cupped her gently,
lifted and squeezed. She whispered what might have been his name,
the sound coming from just below his ear. He wondered what it would
take to make her say it again. The word never sounding quite so
attractive as when it had slipped almost mindlessly from her lips all
husky and soft. Passion blurred. Filled with an equal mix of entreaty
and demand. Determined to give the woman in his arms everything
she desired, he slowly rubbed his thumb in a little circle over her nipple
and felt it harden, rising up to meet him through her clothes. Scully
arched into his hand, gave herself over to him, to his touch. Her head
fell forward to rest in the crook of his neck. Lightly, she nipped at his
throat with her teeth. Mulder found himself craning his head in first
one direction then another; as if hoping to silently signal how much he
liked what she was doing to him. How much he hoped she would
continue.
Then, he felt one of Scully's hands unwind itself from his
thoroughly rumpled hair and trail down the front of him. Glancing over
his chest, his nipple. Slipping down past his ribs, his suddenly ticklish
stomach, to his lap. His groin. At first, she merely let her palm rest
there, warming him through his jeans. Then, she traced the shape of
him, hard and unmistakable through the denim. Ran the tips of her
fingers up his length. Squeezed.
"God!"
Helplessly, his hips lifted up from the sofa, chasing her hand,
all pride banished.
"Make love to me, Mulder," Scully whispered, anointing his
throat with her kisses; his cheek, his jaw. Her hand still stroking and
kneading at the juncture of his legs.
"Scully . . ." He wanted to. Oh God, he wanted to. But,
something . . . something wasn't right.
"Please," she urged, her teeth closing carefully over his ear
lobe, tugging on it gently.
Oh come on, Scully, he wordlessly pled with a sort of rueful
humor, you're not fighting fair.
But why were they "fighting" at all? Even before these new
emotions had come to the forefront, these feelings that reminded
Mulder a whole hell of lot more of love than of friendship, he had
always believed, known, that he would do anything for her. Die, if he
had to.
What she was asking of him now was certainly a good deal
more inviting.
So, why was he hesitating?
Why did giving in to something which he had been the one to
start in the first place feel wrong somehow?
"Scully, wait. . . ." he mumbled, viewing it as a kind of victory
that he was able to get out something other than her name.
"No." And with that, she kissed him as if she thought to pour
her very soul into him; its pathway, their mouths. The kiss was hot.
Desperate. As if she were intent on swaying him to her way of thinking.
And not above using this very effective means of coercion to turn the tide.
Her lips moved over his, clung with a ferocious kind of need. Her tongue
swabbed the inside of his mouth. Explored, with very Scullyesque
thoroughness, every sensitive inch.
Mulder could feel his resolve crumbling. What's the big deal,
Special Agent, goaded a wicked little voice inside of him. What are
you waiting for? It's not as if you two are a couple of teenagers. You
and your partner are both adults. You know what you want. And you
can't deny that you want her. Have wanted her for the longest time.
So go ahead. Have her. Hell, it's not as if Scully has any sort of
reservations on the subject. She has made it more than clear how she
feels about it. The lady is on fire.
For you.
Think of what it will be like to have that flame close around
you as you sink inside her. As you slowly push into that warm, soft,
tight, perfect little body of hers. As her legs wrap around you, holding
you to her while you move. Thrust. Drive into her. Until your arms
can longer support you, and you come to rest, heavy and replete, in hers.
Your heads side by side on her pillow. Her breath puffing softly in your
ear. Her hands stroking up and down your back, winding through your
hair. Come on. Think of how good it will be. It's not as if you don't
care for her . . .
That was just it. He did care for her.
So very much.
And what kind of man would he be, if he allowed their first time
to be nothing more than a kind of painkiller for the psyche? A drug to
block out the horror and the fear. What kind of friend would he be? And
regardless of what changes they had seen that night in their relationship,
he would always be, first and foremost, Dana Scully's friend.
"Scully, no," he finally murmured with a kind of breathless
desperation as he disentangled himself from her embrace. "Wait . . .
please. Just . . . wait a minute."
He sat up, held her away from him, his hands tight around
her upper arms, and studied her face. She stared back at him, soft and
mussed from their previous frantic groping, her color high, her eyes
luminous in the faint light afforded them.
At first, Mulder didn't know what to say. All the noble reasons
that had made him halt their lovemaking now paled when compared
with the sight of her lips, parted and swollen from their kisses. What he
wouldn't give to feel that mouth on areas of his body that had not yet
been fortunate enough to experience its sweetness. Areas currently
covered by his clothing . . .
Clothing that felt as if it were suddenly tight enough to do
double duty as a tourniquet.
God, I should be nominated for sainthood, he wordlessly wailed.
"Scully, we can't do this," he said in a voice that lacked a
certain conviction, his hands gently smoothing up and down her arms.
She licked her lips. Mulder felt like crying. "Why not?"
He laughed, shortly. "Right now, I'm having trouble
remembering exactly why. But, I think it has something to do with
the reason we got to this point in the first place."
She considered this for a moment, then said in a voice that
sounded as if it was straining to recapture a modicum of its usual
authority, "You don't have to protect me, Mulder."
"I want to."
"You can't."
True enough. He bowed his head. "I know."
Of course he knew. He lived with his failure every minute of
every day. His inability to rescue her from Duane Barry, to find her
after she had gone missing, to support her when she had first suspected
that something might be terribly wrong with her. All of these little
betrayals of their friendship, their trust, weighed heavily upon his soul.
And yet, they didn't keep him from wanting to try still again to
make it all right.
Her hand settled lightly on his stubbled cheek, interrupting his
silent litany of his shortcomings. She let it sit there for a moment,
cupping the curve of his face, then tenderly stroked his skin with her
fingertips. "I don't expect you to, Mulder. You know? I don't expect
you or even *want* you to protect me. You're not responsible for me.
That's not your job. Just . . . just be my friend."
He chuckled at hearing the words he had spoken to her so
many months before being tossed back in his direction now, all humor
missing from his stifled laughter. "I'm trying, Scully. God knows I'm
trying."
Her hand fell away from his face to land with a soft thud in
her lap. "I want this."
"So do I," he assured her evenly, as his hands slid down her
arms to link with hers. "Believe me."
"Then why?"
She searched his gaze, her blue eyes piercing in their sorrow,
their clarity. Somewhere along the line that shield that Scully had earlier
thrown up as a sort of last ditch effort at self-preservation had shattered.
She no longer had the luxury of that protection. That illusion of control,
of calm. Now, Mulder could literally sense the emotions filling the space
around her, feel them against his skin, tingling like the air before a
thunderstorm, heavy with the promise of destruction and release.
He had often wondered during the course of their partnership
why Scully had felt like she needed to keep herself so tightly contained.
Why can't she let me in, he would wordlessly query from time to time.
Why can't she let her guard down every once in awhile, open up a wee
bit more?
Be careful what you wish for, Mulder, sang a gleefully malicious
little voice inside him. Because in looking at his partner, it took no
more than an instant for him to recognize that he had gotten his desire.
Scully sat before him utterly vulnerable. Without a single defense in
place.
Trusting him not to hurt her.
And suddenly, he knew without a doubt that he had made the
right decision.
"Scully, why did you call me tonight?" he asked quietly, his
thumbs rubbing slowly, soothingly over the backs of her small hands.
Her brow wrinkled in confusion. "You know why. To tell
you. About this."
Mulder nodded, his own brow creased as well. "Yeah. But . . .
after that. After you told me. What did you think would happen?"
"What do you mean?"
"Why did you want me here? What do you need from me?"
For the longest time, she didn't answer. And Mulder worried
that he had gone too far. That he had, without meaning to, slipped into
psychologist mode when all he had really wanted to do was help her.
To give her what she really needed.
Without taking anything in return.
"Mulder, do you remember up at the cabin?" she inquired
softly at last, her eyes pointed down and away from his, her hands lying
lax within his hold. "When I finally . . . woke up?"
"Yeah," he murmured, his throat going dry as he recalled in
the most unforgiving of detail how he had feared he had lost her forever
even as he had held her in his arms. "I remember. I remember
everything."
Scully looked up then, her gaze stark, all pretense peeled away.
"So do I."
And it was all Mulder could do to keep from crushing her to him.
From absorbing her into his body in an effort to protect her, shield her
from everything. Even himself.
But he refrained. They needed to talk. She needed to talk.
The other, while exquisite, was ultimately only a short-term fix.
Swallowing hard, she continued, her voice low and soft. "I . . .
I didn't know where I was. You know? How I had gotten there. Why
I was so . . tired. I was scared. Had been scared for so long it felt like.
And then you were there. And I knew it was okay."
Mulder nodded a bit shakily. Humbled by her faith in him.
By her willingness to share it with him.
"I . . um . . I had been trying to go it alone for a long time,
Mulder," she said, her eyes scanning his expression as if trying to gauge
how her words were affecting him. Mulder wondered what she saw.
How much he was giving away. "I had tried to be strong all by myself.
But, I could only do so much. And I didn't know . . didn't realize that
until it was almost too late."
"Scully--" he mumbled, feeling the need to interject, but
positively clueless as to what exactly he planned on saying past that
single word.
"You make me feel safe, Mulder," she admitted in a whisper,
ignoring his attempt to cut in, her words pouring forth in a rush once
more. "I'm sorry. . . . I know that probably seems as if it contradicts
what I told you before. About how I don't expect you to be able to
protect me. But it doesn't. Not really. Mulder, I'm not some damsel
in distress. You can't rescue me. But, you can be there for me. I'd like
you to."
"I am," he promised her in a quiet, urgent voice, his hands
coming up to cradle her face. "God, Scully. You know I am. In any
way you want."
She just looked at him for a moment. "But not like that."
Mulder knew what she meant, and took a deep breath before
he spoke. "No. Not like that. At least . . . not now."
"The only thing is--we don't know how much time I have past
'now'."
This time he did pull her into his arms. Awkwardly. His face
buried in her soft auburn hair. "You're not going to die."
"Everyone dies, Mulder. Some just sooner than others."
"Not you. Not like this."
She raised her head from his shoulder, and pulled back an
inch or two to meet his eyes. Their noses touched. Rubbed. A tiny
smile tugged at the corner of her lips. One finely arched brow raised.
"Oh, I see. And you're going to be the one to stop it, huh?"
Knowing just how absurd the notion was of him taking on
Death like a character in an Ingmar Bergman film, Mulder shrugged a
bit sheepishly. Scully tells you she doesn't need a champion, and yet
you assure her you're going to personally see that she winds up with
eternal life.
No problem. Piece of cake.
Still, there was something about the way she was looking at
him. Some approval he saw there. Some peace that had been lacking.
Some smidgen of humor, sparkling in her eyes like diamonds, that made
him glad that he had taken this particular tack. After all, how out of
place was a little hope? He sure as hell knew that he could use some.
And something told him that Scully wouldn't mind a dose of it
as well.
"Watch me," he quietly averred, even as he silently questioned
just where the hell he was getting the balls to be making such promises.
And yet his misgivings didn't seem to transmit to Scully. She
looked up at him from the circle of his arms and softly murmured, "If
anyone could do it, Mulder, I'd put my money on you. And me.
Together."
He nodded. "We can get through this, Scully. You've got to
believe that. We'll find out who's doing this. And we'll stop them."
She continued to watch him, not wholly convinced, it seemed.
Yet, not arguing with him either. Not pricking holes in his bravado.
Not pointing out that they had no leads, no suspects, no real way of
fighting back.
And at that moment, he loved her for her trust, even as he
feared it was ultimately misplaced.
Resting once more against his shoulder, she took her hand
and ran her fingers along his hairline, across his brow. "And what
about the rest of it?"
"The rest of what?"
"Of us. Of this. What do we do now? Do we forget it ever
happened?"
For the first time in a long time, Mulder's laughter wasn't
forced. It rumbled in his chest, and escaped in a series of bumpy
little chuckles. "I don't know about you. But, I have a feeling I'm
going to have a tough time forgetting about tonight."
She smiled up at him, bemused. "That right?"
"Yeah," he assured her softly, his voice gentle. "You have a
way of making an impression, Agent Scully. A knack that I don't
recall them teaching at the Academy."
She just looked at him for a beat. "What is it that you want,
Mulder?"
"Me?"
She nodded. "Yeah. You asked me why I called you. What I
felt I needed from you. Now, I want to know something--what do you
want to have happen? What is it you're looking for from me?"
Keeping one arm locked around her, Mulder's free hand
strayed to her hair. Lightly, he combed through a few silky strands at
a time while he gathered his thoughts. "What do I want from you?" he
echoed, his voice rough, indistinct. "What about what I want *for* you?
That's easier, I think. At least, for me. I want you well. I want you to
be able to sleep at night. I want you happy. And safe. . . ."
"Mulder, I'm not talking about that," Scully muttered with what
sounded like a mixture of affection and frustration, her fist clenched now
and resting against his chest as if she were considering striking him.
"You know that. As nice as all that is, it still doesn't answer my question."
"Which is?"
She hesitated for a moment, her eyes dropping down to focus
somewhere around his chin. Taking a deep and ragged breath, she
softly queried, "Mulder . . . how do you feel about me?"
All at once he couldn't breathe. I wonder if this is what a heart
attack feels like, he mused. Surely the sensation had to be similar.
Because no way could his ticker beat with any more gusto than it
currently did. Not without splattering apart inside his breast like a
busted tomato.
"How do I feel about you?" he questioned in a voice that
sounded as if unseen hands were at that moment somehow clenched
around his throat.
Scully's lips thinned, her eyes remained averted. "I'm sorry,"
she said quietly. "That's the coward's way out. To ask you first. It
really is. It's just . . . I need to know, Mulder. I need to understand
exactly what happened here tonight. Where we stand."
"Where do you think we stand?" he countered, amazed at how
very little a person could actually say when he put his mind to it.
Her eyebrows lifted. But still she didn't look at him. "Okay.
Fair enough. I. . um . . . I can't speak for you. But, I know that I . . . I
had wanted to do what we did tonight for a long time."
"Yeah?" he said with a touch of astonishment.
"Yeah," she confirmed instantly, a wry smile twisting her lips.
"I know that for some reason this comes as a surprise to you. But,
Mulder . . . I had thought about kissing you before. About . . doing more
than that."
He could only nod.
"Now, you may not realize this about me," she continued,
picking and choosing her words carefully, as if she feared that any
misstep might blow up in her face like a bomb. "But, it's not easy for
me to be . . . intimate with a man."
"No?" Mulder murmured, the single word catching somewhere
on the back of his tongue.
"No," she said with a little shake of her head. "I . . um . . .
I don't give away bits of myself very easily. I don't know why. I just
. . . don't."
"I see," he said, not really seeing anything at all.
The corner of her lips raised. "Well then, I'm sure you
understand that I could never go to bed with someone I didn't care
for . . . someone I didn't . . love."
Oh great. Somebody had made off with his voice again.
"And I know you think that my . . coming on to you tonight
was more about escape than anything else," she said with another little
self-deprecating lift of her brows, her fingertips now coasting lightly
over the scratchy wool of his sweater.
"Wasn't it?" he finally croaked.
"No," she whispered, stealing a glance at his eyes, a marvelous
sort of heat aglow in her gaze. "At least not entirely. And even if I was
running away from some of what I found out today, . . . look who I was
running to."
"Me?"
She nodded, her eyes locked on his.
"Scully--"
"I'm not sure when it happened, Mulder. Whether it crept up
on me over the years, or whether it was there right from the start . . .
but . . somewhere along the way . . I fell in love with you. And I . . I
just want you to know."
He sat staring at her. His mouth agape, his eyes blinking
madly.
"No pressure, huh?" she quipped dryly after a beat or two of his
silence.
"No!" he blurted out all at once as he clasped her to him, hugged
her slender form to him as tightly as he dared. "No, that's not it. You
don't understand. It's just . . ."
He shook his head, one hand now pushing a tad unsteadily
through his hair. "No, Scully. Um . . I just . . you know, I've been
sitting here ever since I arrived, thinking to myself . . you gotta be
strong, Mulder. You've got to be the one to hold it together."
He rubbed his hand over his mouth, a smile lifting his lips,
crinkling the corners of his eyes. "And yet, I watch you . . listen to you,
and I . . realize that when it comes to strength, you don't need me at all."
She lowered her lashes, seemingly a trifle embarrassed.
"Haven't you been listening, Mulder? I *do* need you. That's what I've
been telling you."
"Because you love me?" He just had to hear her say it again.
She looked at him then. "Yes," she whispered.
"As much as I love you?" he murmured at last, hoping that his
eyes would fill in the gaps between his words.
She hesitated for only an instant. "I don't know. You tell me."
"I'm trying, Scully," he said with a helpless sort of shrug. "I'm
just not really good at it."
"Then maybe you better show me instead," she suggested with
a tiny smile.
"My God, woman," he teased as he pulled her to him once more.
Their lips met. Clung. Then parted. "You have a one track mind."
She chuckled and sighing, nestled into his arms. "Okay. How
about a compromise instead."
"What did you have in mind?"
"Stay with me tonight." She reached up and laid her hand upon
the corner of his jaw. "We don't have to do anything. I just . . . I'd like
you here. You know? I don't want to be alone. Not tonight."
He pressed a kiss to her hair. "I'd like that. I would. Come
here."
Shifting a bit on the sofa, he pulled her carefully onto his lap.
They sat together in the corner of the couch, Scully resting so that her
cheek was on Mulder's shoulder. He scooted down so that his head was
supported by a mound of throw pillows, his legs stretched out before him.
She turned so that her chest was cushioned by his, her stockinged feet
brushing lightly against his calves. For a time, they said nothing. Instead,
they merely watched the fire die, its sputters and popping lulling the two
of them as surely as the comfort they found in each others arms. Each of
them aware that they had laid together like this before. When they had
both passed through another obstacle, another test of their courage, their
determination.
Each of them knowing there would be more such trials to come.
"This is nice," Scully whispered at last, her fingers rubbing little
circles on his sweater, her body warm and soft against him. "Thank you.
I wish that we could do this every night."
"That's not so impossible a wish," Mulder murmured, his hand
stroking gently through her hair, his body at long last giving into the
persuasive languor he usually found was the forerunner of sleep.
"Isn't it?" she challenged quietly.
"Oh, Scully. You've got to believe."
She chuckled. "So you keep telling me."
Sighing, he clasped her in his arms and said a silent little prayer,
the words particular to his needs, his fears. Don't take this from me,
he implored. Okay? Leave me this. Leave me her. The rest of it you
can have.
"And I will keep on telling you," he promised as he kissed her
yet again, this time near her temple. "For as long as it takes."
She yawned, her hand reaching up to stroke his cheek. "I'll
be here."
Please, he wordlessly begged once more.
Please God.
* * * * * * * *
THE END
"If wishes were horses, beggars might ride." John Ray (1627-1705)
"English Proverbs"
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