TITLE: Waiting AUTHOR: Dreamshaper (dreamshpr@aol.com) RATING:R CATEGORY: A, MSR, minor Character deaths, but not Mulder or Scully. I can't bear to write that kind of story... SPOILERS: Um, nothing really specific--general knowledge up to season 6 SUMMARY: Scully recieves one of the phone calls that no one ever wants to get...and she and Mulder are thrown into a situation they never expected. DISCLAIMER: I'm not gonna say who's they are. That way, if someone on the staff of the Guy Who Owns Them reads this in hopes of suing, they will realize my genius and be forced to hire me as a writer... Ok, ok, it'll never happen, I know...they belong to CC and whomever else makes money off 'em--thats a group that definitely does not include me! NOTES:This was actually gonna be a pure smut piece...But somehow something that almost resembled Plot snuck in and dragged Character along with it...don't blame me if they suck, I'm just the author! FEEDBACK: I will love you forever if you send it, and hunt you down if you don't. :) ARCHIVING: I love being archived, if you want to--go for it! Just tell me first so I can bask in the glory of archivation ;) `````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````` I have never slept easily. As a small boy, I had had a very vivid imagination, a precursor I suppose of the very passionate, openminded personality I would develop. The result of my imagination was nightmares, horrid gruesome dreams that I remember to this day. I used to wake and lay in my bed, eyes wide open and body frozen, stiff and still till the sun rose. All children do this I suppose. But most run to their parents and are soothed, either reassured gently that the monsters do not exist, or allowed to sleep in their bed...my parents had no time to soothe me, nor any real inclination to do so. My demons grew, as did my persistent belief that they did exist. Then Samantha was abducted. I sat up every night after she disappeared, much like I did when awoken from a dream, waiting and wary. I listened for the sound of her voice, for the screaming fights between my mother and father to end, for the light to return...and I waited for the phone to ring. I wanted more than anything for that phone to ring. I wanted it to all be over--it seems horrible to say it, but I would have been as relieved to have the phone ring and some emotionless voice tell me she was dead as I would have been to hear a joyous voice announce her return. Of course the phone never rang... I still find myself waiting for that phone call, that's that hell of it all. I still lay awake at night, boneless on my couch, and I think about Samantha and I wait for the phone call that will ease my torment in one way or another. I know, in my heart I know that it will never come, and I fear that I will die and never know the peace that will come from the cessation of my torment. Every call that I get in the middle of the night, every time my phone rings, there's this automatic reaction inside me, and I think for an instant that this call, this call is *the* call. I keep waiting...after all, hope springs eternal. Right? I still hope. That amazes me when I think about it--after all the false leads, all the contradictory evidence, after all the searching to no avail, I still have this hope that I will know the Truth. That this next phone call will be the one to change my life. My phone is close at hand tonight as I stare at the ceiling, head resting on folded arms. My mind is whirling with thougts of the past and fear of the future, and all I want to do is call Scully, have her reassure me that we *will* find the Truth, and that she will be there with me the whole way. Thats another one of my little kernels of persistent hope...that Scully will always be here, where I need her. Alive and whole, strong as ever and ready to kick my ass if I need it, if I'm being wrong or stupid. God knows I ought to let her go, ought to push her away--for her own safety. But I have to keep her close. She's all that's keeping me alive, other than my damned crusade. I hold her close for my sanity, and she knows this as well as I do. She knows all my little tricks, and I smile as I think back on all the times she has seen right through me, right into the heart of me and done what she could to keep me on the relatively straight and narrow. As long as she lives, she will be there. As long as she lives... The phone breaks this latest reverie, and I answer automatically, as hopeful and afraid as I have always been. "Mulder...I just got some bad news." Scully. Of course. I was thinking of her, of calling her...so she calls me. I smile at the phone despite the knowledge that this is one more phone call that is not about Samantha, one more call bringing bad news... "What happened?" I ask, prepared for almost anything. "Bill and Tara...they...there was a car accident, Mulder. They...they didn't survive. They died, Mulder. They're gone..." There is something like a sob in the crack of her voice, and tears in her steady breathing. Scully grief...I know this emotion all too well. It is cold and quiet, and rarely expressed...does it eat at her less that way? I am off the couch and dressing even before I finish telling her that I will be at her apartment as soon as I can. She hangs up without a good bye and I fly through my apartment, cleaning myself up a little and hunting up my car keys. It takes me five minutes to be on my way. The streets are quiet at this time of morning, and I am there in no time, bounding up the stairs and making my way to her door. She must have been waiting, seen my car pull up, because she is holding the door open as I round the corner. There is no expression on her face, but she ducks her head beforeI can look into her eyes, has ushered me in and shut the door before I can tip her chin and make her look at me. Immediately, she is off and running, giving me all the details as she makes coffee, talking as if she is giving a report. There is no emotion, and I shudder. She's trying to lock it all away, close it off--I never could understand why she felt grief and fear were weaknesses, but it hurts me to know that she has a wealth of pain hidden away. What does she do with it? Does she do what I do and lay awake at night, dragging out the old pains and torturing herself with them, holding them to the light and looking into them? Does she unshield her heart and revel in the grief till it feels like Death is looking on, gleefully anticipating that she will give in to the burden that she carries alone? That thought enrages me--she can't die, she can't give in. She must not be defeated... I touch her shoulder, forcing gentleness into my hands even as I want to shake the emotion to her surface. She halts her narrative on the car crash, on the funeral, on whatever the hell she was trying to delude herself with and freezes, head down and breath harsh. Her hands clench on the handle of the coffee pot, and I slide one of my hands down her arm, hoping to entangle her fingers with my own, hoping to push her gently into tears... She surprises me as she always does and violently explodes. The coffee pot is flung against the wall with desperate force, crashing and splattering us both with water. She takes the brunt of it without flinching, and I get the impression that she wishes that it had been hot, that it had burnt her, scarred her. "God *damn* it," she swears softly as she picks up the broken glass. "God damn it, why them? Why them, Mulder? Why my brother? That bastard that hit them--he was so drunk! He wouldn't have even known he was hurt, wouldn't have felt the pain that Tara and Bill felt!" She freezes there, on her knees on the floor in the midst of that broken glass, and I can feel the cold rage in her begin to burn. "He gets to see his family, Mulder. His children. They will never see Mattie again." I kneel beside her, wincing as I glance down at her hands and see the cuts, the bleeding as she grinds the shards in her hands. It takes all my strength to open her hands, dump the glass on the floor. Getting her off her knees and into the bathroom is nearly impossible, I have to half carry her. She seems oblivious to me now, to the cuts on her palms and I wonder where she is... I think I know. Mattie. Her nephew, small and innocent. What will happen to him? His parents dead, his grandmother relatively young and healthy but still in little shape to raise such a small boy, his uncle off constantly on trips to wherever he goes, doing whatever it is he does. He didn't return home when his sister was dying, he will have no inclination to raise such a small child... And Scully, unable to bear children...not nearly in remission long enough to be certain that she is cancer free...unmarried and alone... Where does that leave Mattie? I wonder this myself as I clean the glass out of her hands, bandaging them gently. Which Scully will take him home? My Scully looks up at me then, and her eyes are so empty, filled only with the fierce determination that I have come to associate only with her. And I know exactly where that leaves Mattie... End Part 1 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Scully was on the phone before I could even finish the bandaging on both hands. She had forgotten my presence again, and I cleaned up the coffee pot and water mess in her kitchen as I watched her pace around her living room. I listened with half an ear, confident that I would remember all the details whether or not she meant for me to. She called the airport first, made arrangements for a flight, one that would take off in less than three hours. Then she called her mother, who had already been appraised of the deaths. I winced in sympathy for her mother as I realized that Scully was in no mood to give or take sympathy. She had a goal, and she was going for it wholeheartedly, and without doubt. I think that's something she picked up from me, the single minded focus on a goal. She must have had some of it hidden away from childhood, the way she plowed through Med school and the academy certainly hints at it. But her association with me certainly toughened her determination, brought that singlemindedness to the fore. I would be proud, if I wasn't afraid that she was focused on the one thing that could hurt her as deeply as the loss of Emily had--the loss of another child she had her heart set on raising. I know that's her goal, though she hasn't voiced it yet. The certainty of her heart is very apparent, and very intense. I am frightened for anyone who would dare get in her way on this...and I am sure that there will be many who will try to thwart her in this. After all, she is single, with a dangerous job and potentially with a fatal illness...she went up against the brick wall of beauracracy during her time with Emily, and it is almost certain that she would not have won then. She has more against her now, in some ways. She is by no means the birth parent of Matt, and there are other family members who must certainly look more stable, at least in the cold eye of the system. Perhaps Charlie will fight for custody, perhaps Maggie will seem more fit to the courts... I almost hope she does. If Scully wishes to have a chance in this endeavor, she will most certainly have to quit the FBI. She will marry, I am certain of it...she is traditional enough, I think, to seek a father for her nephew, and someone to help her in the raising of the boy. She will likely move, to a suburb where she is more certain of his safety, a place where she can give him a yard... She will leave me, and I have no right to force my way into her life. My mind strays from that most dangerous of paths, and I find myself thinking of Bill. He was such a prick to me, but with such good reason...I think the only reason that he didn't try to kill me was Tara. He loved his wife, loved his family...a devoted father and brother under the tough Navy exterior, and I smile as I remember the tenderness with which he always held both his son and his wife, the love that shone for his family whenever he forgot that he was supposed to be one tough bastard... And Tara...a Scully by marriage, but you'd never know she wasn't raised with the rest of them. I liked Tara--she seemed very sweet, but tough underneath, like a true Scully. Her family was the center of her world, and I got the distinct impression when I saw them all together in California that she was very much in the center of Scully family life. She liked me, I think, and I know that she saw through my "Scully-is-only-my-partner-and-friend" act. I know she saw that her sister-in- law was a huge, vital part of me...Tara saw it the instant she met me, and she approved. I wasn't expecting this...all the sudden, grief is tearing up my chest, and I feel tears rising. They're such a strong family, the Scully's. Good people, who are trying to do their best. Bill and Tara... they just wanted for Scully to be happy, for Mattie to grow up healthy and as happy as they could possibly make him. Where in the rulebooks does it say it's ok to hurt people like this family? Who said, ok, this family has suffered so much...let's give 'em a little more, pile on another tradgedy? Where has it been written that people so strong should be gradually beaten down by time and loss? How is it possible for Scully to be functioning right now? How the hell does she function at all? I make my way unsteadily to her couch and drop there, weary. She is on the phone now with Skinner...it's almost seven a.m. and we are both due in at work in an hour...it is a shock to hear her request leave for a week, for both of us--and it a huge shock to realize that it has apparently been granted. What is she planning? She turns to me, and there is a small smile on her face. I reach out a hand to her, am pushed away. She rises with a weak laugh and commences pacing again, bookshelf to window and back. "Dana..." my voice is coaxing, use of her given name intended to bring her attention to me. But my tactics are apparently not going to work, she only tosses a hand up in an automatic call for silence. "You know, when I got the call, I knew something was wrong, terribly wrong. And the voice...I knew instantly that someone was dead, and I thought it was you." She stops pacing long enough to laugh bitterly, quietly, and scoops her hand through her bright hair before continuing. "I thought it was you, Mulder...and I was praying. 'Please, don't let Mulder be dead...anything else I can deal with...', and you weren't dead. But my brother, Tara...I feel like I somehow sacrificed them, to keep you alive." I can't breathe--I want her to stop...I can't hear this, can't bear it... "What did I do, what crime have I committed? My family, dying, one after another. My father dies, and I am only beginning to recover when I am taken. I start to live again after so much time spent lost and Missy is gone before I can show her how much I truly love her, something I vowed I would do before I died...so convinced I would die first...Emily..." She stops, falls into a chair more than sits, and meets my eyes...I am crying, tears roll down my cheeks, shed for her and her losses, and the loss of Emily which I feel in my heart is partly my loss, as selfish and stupid as that sentiment may be. Her eyes soften, and tenderness fills them for a moment. She reaches out her bandaged hand to me, but I rise and kneel before her instead. I put my head in her lap, wrap my arms around her and hold on tight--this is tearing me apart, and I can almost feel grief and despair tearing her at the seams...how much more can she take before we both fall apart? Her unbandaged hand is in my hair, and she is breathing slow and even beneath the cheek I have pressed tight to her stomach. When she speaks again I can feel it, pressed so close to her. I feel her speaking, feel the vibrations, far more than I hear the words she is speaking... "Matthew will not grow up unwelcomed by Charlie, or feeling a burden on my mother. He will not, I will not allow it. He will grow up mine, knowing about Tara and my brother, knowing as much as I can teach him about them," and she paused for a second before raising my head and meeting my eyes with that small, weak smile, "but, Mulder...he will be mine. And I have no compunction about using everything I have to get him." Whatever chance I had of convincing her to chose another path is gone. I nod in agreement, but can't help begin to list everything she has against her in this. "Scully...you remember what it was like to fight for custody of Emily...this can only be tougher than that battle. The chances of a young, single FBI agent being granted custody of a child--no matter the relationship between them--are slim to none in this kind of situation...and with your cancer being so recently in remission--Scully, it might not happen." She was shaking her head before I was done speaking, and I knew I was in trouble... her eyes were almost amused, and unutterably weary. "That's why I'm going to quit the FBI, Mulder. Screw it all, I feel useless there anyway. I'll make so much more difference teaching, or even just doing the frigging autopsies." She laughed, a low, mirthless chuckle that sent chills down my spine...I found myself almost afraid of her, and kept my mouth shut as she continued. "And I'm going to be getting married." Shock. That was all I felt. I had known that it would be coming but still...so soon, I'd be losing her so soon, before I ever really had her... She knocked me on my ass, literally. I fell over, and landed flat on my back on her floor as she shoved me. Before I could scramble up, her hands were holding mine, and her clear blue eyes were holding mine, and I could hear her talking to me, could even decipher her words...but the meaning behind them eluded me for a long time... "Mulder, will you marry me?" END PT 2 `````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````` Waiting (2/3) by Dreamshaper Woohoo, part 2 ! if you like disclaimers and stuff, go back to section one and look 'em up, I don't like to repeat myself...too much anyway. `````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````` I can't imagine that our lives could have changed more in the two months... In the two months since Scully and I married. We adopted Mattie, and it was far easier than I had thought it would be. He was remanded into our custody within hours of our arrival in California, fresh from Nevada with wet ink on our marriage license. Within only a few hours, Scully was settled in with him in her brother's home, and I was on my way back to D.C. I handed in her resignation, called my mother and informed her of our situation--not like she really even cared any more, but I was obliged--moved out of my apartment into hers and set up a space for the baby in her spare room, a temporary yet cozy place, both of those things thanks to Scully's mother... Maggie has been such a help these past months. She helped me find us a house that fit Scully's criteria--by the water, with a yard and three bedrooms, safe for Mattie. She was character witness for us both, and a very good one, testifying to the fact that we were loving and stable...it wasn't easy to convince the courts of that, of course, not with our records, but Maggie did not petition for custody, nor did Charlie. And she was the one that told Scully and myself that Tara had asked in her will that "Her sister-in- law, Dana Katherine Scully, be allowed to take custody of any child resulting from her union with Bill Scully in case of their deaths"... Bill's will had not been changed since the birth of his son, and provided us no help. Tara, concerned, practical mother to the end made it all so much easier... And if she had made it so that our marriage was unnecessary, I did not mention it, nor did anyone else. We were given permanent custody of Mattie within weeks, but there was no happiness in our homecoming. Scully loves Matt deeply, and it shows in everything she does with him, every time she touches him. But in few other aspects of her life does there seem to be any emotion. There is happiness when she watches over him as he plays on our beach, and there is contentment when he sleeps peacefully, there is a fascination in his process of discovery, and there is fierce protectiveness...I feel all those things as well now, and the feeling I get from watching their copper hair in the sunlight as they "research" whatever happens to be laying on the beach...I have never known emotion that strong, not even despair. He is important to me as well--as much as I never even hoped to be a father, I am glad to be his now. Baby smiles and baby hugs are as disarming, soothing and healing as Scully smiles and Scully hugs in my world...though her smiles and touches are less common now than during the most strained times of our friendship. She does not want to deal with the emotions wrought by her brother's death and the death of his wife, I know that. And she knows that I think she needs more than one outburst to heal. She knows I want more from her, and she is determined not to give it... She avoids my eyes now, my touch. If I call her Dana, she flinches. If I try to draw her out of herself, she freezes up and snubs me, heading either outside with Matt or to work... Scully has gone back to forensic pathology. Labs across the states vied for her, and she chose the highest paying one within a hundred miles of our new home in Maryland. She is doing very well, of course, establishing herself as a forensic genius. But she suffers through children's autopsies, and each victim of drunken driving tears her up inside...not that she has told me so, but I can read her very well. She grieves still for her brother and his wife and has not cried yet...not once. That is what I listen for at night now. At least temporarily, I have given up laying awake waiting for the phone to ring...I listen now for the sound of her tears. I never hear them. To all outward appearances, she is fine. When I am gone--I can not and will not give up my search--I worry for her fiercely, as deeply as I did when she had cancer. I lay awake in motel rooms and wait for her to call, wanting to talk, wanting to cry. Another call that I have never recieved. I'm on my way home now, back from a short trip to Nevada in search of a downed craft near Rachel...I have a report to file with the FBI and one to file with my old partner, who does maintain a fierce interest in the X-Files. She is a help even here at home, providing me strength and insights much as she did when we were partners and off together. I see sometimes a longing to be on the road in her eyes, a desire to be researching with me--to be chasing ghosts and aliens and the truth instead of a toddler, and I want to drop Matt off with Maggie and drag Scully out with me...for my sake as well as hers. I do not do so well without her, despite her long-distance assistance. Progress is slow to say the least. But she would not permit such an action, and I know it would not be wise, despite the fact that there is nothing I long for more in the world than the satisfaction of nearly proving her wrong. I want her to be happy...to be at least energized. I want her to grieve openly and allow me to help her. It's all I've wanted for months now. She is losing weight again, and I worry for her health. She is not sleeping. She exercises, she goes to work, she talks and she laughs...but she is wasting away. I can't help her with this, am not allowed. It hurts me to see her like this, to know that I amnot allowed to aid her... I love her, deeply, and have always been attracted to her...I had thought that perhaps that part of our lives might move forward once we were married, but Scully is too far away from me, suppressing all traces of emotion, and I will not ask for anything that I will get grudgingly, or without hope and light. Not from her, not in this. We have not made love--we have not kissed other than the perfunctory kiss required at our marriage ceremony. I have attempted to prove to her that I love her, hoping that knowing I love her and desire deeply to help her will soften her, at least enough for her to truly begin to heal from these losses that she has allowed to accumulate within her rather than express. I want her to draw strength from me as I have so often drawn strength from her... My attempts have fallen short of convincing her. Tonight is going to be my most blatant attempt yet--Maggie and I have conspired since I left for Nevada. She will be taking Matt home with her for the night, will bring him back when I call her tomorrow evening. Until such time as I call her, all calls from our home will be forwarded to hers, no messages let through but the most vital. I will be at home with Scully, either infuriating her enough that she begins to release the built up pain and tension of these long months, or seducing her into accepting love...an acception that will hopefully have the same affect as fury. Release. `````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````` Her car is in the drive when I pull up, and Maggie is just pulling out. We grin at each other like the conspirators we are--she has Mattie strapped in the backseat. I make a silly face at the baby and am rewarded with a bright grin--it is amazing to me how much those little grins have come to mean, how much each and every one lightens my heart. I am a much less tormented person since that little boy entered my life, though my intense search for the truth continues and despite the desperation that I feel when contemplating the way Scully and I are not together despite th marriage bonds. My desire to find the Truth has been, actually, renewed within me by his presence--he and his aunt deserve the truth, and I will find it for them. It is my mission now to do what I can for them even as I do what I can for myself. I am still a selfish man, there will be no changing that I'm sure. But it is my family's love and safety that I work to gather now, it is their happiness that will make me happy. Our home is quiet when I enter, and I know immediately where she is--the beach. She is a child of the sea, and I think she is closest to contentment by the water, ice cream in hand as she watches Matt play in the strip of grass that borders the beach and our yard. I head to the back, only pausing to strip and change into jeans and a turtleneck. I find her seated on a rock, watching the sunset, and just stand for a moment watching her. She is so beautiful. Her hair is tousled, she is too thin and a weariness invades every line of her body, but she is still beautiful... This is why I didn't want to love her, long ago when I had thought that I had a choice. This longing that nearly overwhelms me at every turn, with her every word and her every gesture. I fought this from the moment she walked into my office, offering honesty and loyalty. I did not want the happiness I knew she offered with one look into her eyes, did not want the emotions that such a strong, stubborn woman would force me to deal with. I just wanted to live or die fighting for the truth, whichever happened... But Fate can not be fought, and I have gven up the attempt. Now, to convince her to do the same... End Part 2 `````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````` ps all the good stuff like the disclaimer is back in part 1...this is part 3, so you've gone too far if you were looking for it ;) `````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````` I sit beside her on the rock and gaze out to the water. We are silent, till I reach for her hand. She fights to pull it away, and I maintain my grip--she has rejected my touch too often, we are losing our connection, and I can't have that happen. I refuse to allow her to deny the comfort that I want to offer, and need her to accept. When she allows her hand to lie limp in mine, I turn to face her. She continues to look out over the water, and her face is set. So I pull her into my arms. I'm tired of waiting, and I'm tired of fearing...I want to hope again, I want to feel her in my arms, I want to look into her eyes and see that soul shining through the shields that time and despair have built... She does not fight my arms, she doesn't relax--she is as stiff as she was the night she was informed of Bill's death. I do no more than hold her, one hand in her hair, one around her waist as I look with her into the deep purple and red tinted water of the lake--sunset is nearly done, soon the water will be icy black and forbidding, but for now it looks warm and soothing. Her stiffness fades in the warmth of the night, and I close my eyes, savor her in my arms for the first time in so long. It doesn't last nearly long enough. "Mulder," she sighs, and I hum low in my throat, momentarily content, "I think we need to get a divorce..." That was definitely not expected. Surprised, I loosen my grip enough for her to pull free, and she crosses the sand, gaze locked on the increasingly cold water. I sit, glued to the rock and silent as I await her reasoning... It's not a long wait. "You are...a sexual person, Mulder, and I'm not. An affectionate person--which I must admit surprised me, even after knowing you so long. You have always sought comfort from touches, now it seems like you seek not only comfort but just closeness...I'm not that kind of person. I can't be, not now. You need that in your life, and don't deny it... I'm tied in so many knots...And there's so much you need to do Mulder, so many Truths that you have to uncover--for Samantha's sake, for your sake, and for my sake..." This I know well, though I doubt the validity of her assertion that she isn't sexual. I remember the heat and fondness that I have seen in her eyes so many times...I remember the tender sensuality of her touch. There were times when we were both so hungry that it shimmered in the air around us till strangers three miles away began to feel it... But the knots--I see them every day, I feel them, I yearn to unravel them... And I do have so much searching left to do, searching that is immeasurably more difficult now that she can no longer be there at my side when I'm haring off after a lead or a lie... But none of that matters, not anymore. Not when I stack it all up against the happiness I get from a smile from that baby that represents all her hopes and dreams now, when I think about how much I need her to be a huge part of my life--when I think about laying awake all night listening for the ringing of a phone and the call from some official voice telling me Dana Scully has died...when I think about finding the Truth but not being with her when it is revealed to me... She has continued, and I hear her describe all the logical reasons that this should be over--Mattie is safely in her custody, I must be yearning to return to the XFiles full time, we don't love each other... That's the one that propells me off the rock and into her space. I stand directly behind her, hands on her stiff shoulders, and I bend low to whisper into her ear. "You may not love me Scully, not now. But do not ever doubt that the only reason that I agreed to this was because I love you, and I wanted to help you. I wanted to be a part of your life in a way I wasn't and I was *glad* of a chance to rectify that..." I turned her around, and dropped my forehead to rest on hers, eyes half closed and focused internally, "Never doubt, Scully, that I love you. That I have loved you for so long...Never doubt that all I want from you now is emotion...I want you to scream and cry. I want you to grieve...I want you to heal, for Matt's sake, for your sake...for mine, because I feel too much of what you feel. Because I can't live with you mourning the losses forever, not without going insane..." I can't look at her, shut my eyes completely. But I notice when her hands grip my wrists, and my stomach sinks...till she sighs and relaxes back into me, holding my wrists, not pushing me away. Then my eyes shoot open and I pray that I will look into her eyes and see emotion, true emotion... For the first time in months, I am not disappointed. Her eyes are lit by the last of the sun's rays, and they are crystalline and beautiful...and swimming in tears. They begin to fall when I smile at her, when I hold her gaze with my own. "It's all right to cry, Scully...even the strongest of us have to cry..." It's like she needed permission all these months, needed to be told like this that it was ok to cry, to mourn. The tears are hidden now against my neck...but they're flowing. I am held by those tears as surely as I am held by her hands wrapped around my wrists, and I hold my breath as I urge her to accept my love for what it is, as I urge her to cry and let it all out... She has wrapped her arms around my waist, hands searching for the skin under my turtleneck, breath hot and uneven with tears on my throat...she makes no noise, but this is a posture she holds only when in deepest despair, and I wrap her in, hold her so close that I can no longer breathe. And she cries. She finally cries. `````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````` Her tears do not last long, and I urge her to calmness with kisses to the crown of her head and her skin, which is finally warming after weeks of deep chill. She finally begins to whisper to me of her grief, the hole in her heart left by two dead siblings and a close friend, by the death of her father. I realize that her grief is compounded by a deep feeling of responsibility, and I wonder at the strength of a woman who has as much torment as I have, yet has managed to deal with it, function long enough to settle her nephew into a comfortable new life before she begins to allow herself to mourn. I doubt I could have done it, at least not without her...is it any wonder that I find myself nearly weeping for her losses, for my losses, even as she lets out a final sigh and I feel the return of my Scully, my partner of more than half a decade. She is tucked limply into my embrace, but I can practically feel strength returning to her with every breathe, feel her spirit flow back with every slow thump of her heart against my ribcage...I am strengthened by the power of her courage. And when she turns out of my arms and leads me into the dimly lit house--our dimly lit home--I follow, weak-kneed with relief...wobbly with relief... It is time. `````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````` I revel in the warmth of her hands on my skin, delight in the slight roughness, the strength that is transmitted to me by her touch alone, and I marvel in the textures of her body, smooth and soft, strong and scarred. I whisper of love again and again and rejoice in her kisses, which tell me that she loves me better than words ever could. She seems made for my mouth, I discover, her skin tastes good and it shivers under my tongue, and I shudder in return. Her lips seem to find me at least as delightful as they leisurely pass over my chest and down my stomach. I laugh as she tickles me and grin when I think of her assertion that she is not sexual, even as I slowly discover every scar and freckle, every satin soft span of skin and listen to her breathe lose it's evenness and it's quiet--she might not moan and shout my name, but her quiet shifts in breathing tell me more than any scream ever could, and are somehow more intimate in the quiet, warm darkness of her room. More arousing, more passionate--she is more arousing and passionate than any woman I have ever known, more honest in her response. And when I give in to her urging hands and whispers, when I slide into her heat easily and set a rhythm that raises goosebumps on both of us, I wonder how I ever lived without this particular brand of Scullytruth. Orgasm ripples through me slowly, and I sigh her name, her quietude invading me in this most emotional of moments, and I try to hold her eyes with mine, try to tell her my every secret, my every thought, with my eyes--I let my soul escape into her, hoping that mine and hers will tangle forever, and she smiles before she bites her lip and archs back into her own climax... The slide down to conciousness is slow and langorous, and I come awake with a lightness in my heart of a kind I have never felt before, and open my eyes to soak in her presence as she sleeps lightly, peacefully. When I kiss her softly, she shifts to open hazy eyes and look up at me soberly. Fear races through me--is this something she regrets? Will she push for divorce... But one hand rises again to touch my cheek, and her eyes are gentle, so I settle down from, the automatically restraining posture I had taken above her. "I thought, after I asked you to marry me and take care of Matt that Bill would be cursing me in Heaven...add that to the regret and guilt I felt, Mulder, for praying that you would not be dead, at any cost..." I nodded. I definitely understand regret and guilt, they were constant companions for so long... "I pushed you away, and I pushed the grief away, and I pushed everything down...but you knew, you knew all along that I was in pain, Mulder. I want to thank you for knowing me well enough to back off, and to push..." Her husky voice had fallen into a smoky murmur that I rejoiced in, and I feel the faintest stirrings of a desire long repressed and love long denied. And I start to tell her not to say anything more, lest she find herself in trouble when she does it...says the one thing more guaranteed to get her into trouble than any flukeworm, any ghost, any abductor or any alien ever could have... "I love you, Mulder." And I roll her into my arms, and I kiss her and I say thank you to whatever God it was that brought her into my life. And I stop waiting. THE END `````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````` Hey folks, thanks for sticking this one out with made me...if you made this far without saying "Screw it, this sucks." I'm happy--I was pretty tired of it myself by part 2, I can't imagine how the rest of you feel. ;) Ok, I'll let you all go back to your real lives or whatever now--but if you could drop a line of praise or critique, I would be delighted. For some reason I am as uncertain of this story as I was of my first... Dreamshaper (dreamshpr@aol.com)