Title: Sedimentation Author: Maria Nicole E-mail: marianicole29@yahoo.com Distribution: Anywhere automatic is fine. Anywhere that already has one of my stories is fine. Anyone else, please let me know where you're putting it so I can come visit. Rating: PG Classification: VR Keywords: MSR Spoilers: Orison, Fire Summary: Musings on the edge of sleep Many, many thanks to haphazard method, cofax, and Maggie for both beta and encouragement, and to Marasmus for the info on British Valentine's Day customs 2/14/00, Evanston, Illinois He is walking down the bright florescent aisle with his father, half-hearing the tinny music being piped through the store. On the shelves, rows and rows of tiny, plastic Scullys stare at him from behind cellophane, their mouths plugged by the alien umbilical cord, eyes open and staring and horrified. His father tells him that this store sells only quality merchandise, and he says, "No," and pushes himself through the deep waters of sleep to wakefulness. He surfaces to find himself immersed in her scent, wrapped in her body. They are still in each other's arms, which surprises him. In the two weeks since the Pfaster case, no matter what position they fell asleep in, they would shift in sleep and wake to find themselves back to back, pressed together tightly. Tonight, though, they are layered over each other--his head resting against her breasts, her arm curled around his shoulder, his arm over her stomach. Maybe this conference at the Center for UFO studies was a good choice after all. Scully has not seemed to enjoy it much, but it has given them a small breather before they face their third week of desk duty, and it is the first time in two weeks that they have felt safe enough to leave their backs unguarded in sleep. He lifts his head a little to read the clock on the table. 1:23. The alarm will ring at 7:00; they have an early flight out of O'Hare. Through the inch of space where the curtains wouldn't close completely, he sees a light snow falling, the flurries that have been forecast all weekend. It shouldn't be enough to delay their flight, though. The morning is supposed to be clear. He lets his head rest against Scully again, sliding his hand underneath her pajama top to splay his fingers over her stomach, needing to feel her skin against his. He is astonished anew by the tangible, warm, breathing mass of her body, the complex, fierce, compassionate reality of her mind. He has stopped questioning the fact that Scully wants to be with him, but he hasn't yet reached the stage of taking it for granted. He doesn't want to reach that stage, to lose his sense of wonder at the rightness of this thing between them, as inevitable as gravity or the movement of the stars. His eyes start to drift shut. He blinks them back open, not wanting to lose this moment of awareness so quickly, this time of him and Scully together and warm and safe, with the snow falling softly outside. He stores it in his memory to use later as a comfort, a ward against pain. Sleepiness brings back other memories to sift through. When he had been young, he and his father had always cleared the driveway together. He remembers the weight of the shovel, the heft of the snow as he tossed it on the side of the driveway, the rhythm of it. His father always made him go across the street to shovel for Mrs. Halovich, who invited him in and tried to feed him cookies, who scared him with her old-lady smell, her long, rambling stories, her loneliness. "My little grandson," she called him, and he did not protest although silently he was screaming that she was no relation, not at all, that he was only there because his father made him. He always tried to make Samantha come with him, but she would run off with her friends. She was off with her own friends; he realizes this with a small shock. Somehow, he had forgotten that they had both had friends, that his family had not been insular and closed, that his childhood playmates had been boys of his own age, not Samantha. He turns over a new memory of his sister and...Jan, that was her name...making a snowman in his front yard. The flood of childhood memories that have returned to him since January has been one of the odd, unexpected consequences of sleeping with Scully. It's as if their shift from friends to lovers was some geologic collision that shook all sorts of tiny pebbles out of place, bringing long-buried events to his attention again. He needs to find a new place for them, to settle them next to his usual well-worn memories. His eyes are drifting closed again, and he lets himself hover on the edge of sleep, hearing the rumble of the snowplow somewhere outside. Is there a snow scraper in the back of the car? He doesn't remember seeing one, but he wasn't paying attention. Samantha made snow angels, throwing her arms open wide to sweep away the fresh powdery snow on top and sculpt the harder snow beneath. Tomorrow, no, today, is Valentine's Day and he's made the reservations and bought the chocolate but he still needs to find a card that conveys something of substance instead of sentiment. When he came back from Mrs. Halovich his mother would have hot chocolate and cookies waiting for him and would ruffle his hair and tell him that she was proud of him and the rest of the day would be his, to run over to Jack's house and have a snowball fight. He would have to ask Scully if her family had ever been stationed in a place where it snowed and did you ever shovel snow, Scully, did you make snow angels, did you climb on the highest piles at the end of the driveway and proclaim yourself queen of all you surveyed? Tomorrow, he thinks, I'll ask you. *** He half-wakes again to the pressure of fingers on his forehead and the rustle of sheets, coming more fully awake when the flushing of the toilet makes the pipes clatter. He sees her pause when she leaves the bathroom to let her eyes reaccustom themselves to darkness, and then she walks back to the bed. "Still snowing?" he asks, his voice low and scratchy. She pauses in the act of pulling back the covers. "Sorry, didn't mean to wake you." "S'okay," he mumbles, and turns his head on the pillow to see the clock. 3:15. "It was snowing earlier." "No, not anymore," she says, and crawls back into the cocoon of covers, fitting herself against his side and resting her head against his chest. He wraps his left arm around her; he's found that she relaxes more if he has only one arm around her, if she's not completely enclosed. "Our flight shouldn't be a problem," she adds. "Wouldn't hurt us to stay another day even if it was," he says. He can feel the muscles in her back tense a little, and he smooths his hand over them absently. "Killian said we were welcome anytime to look into their archives." "That case he told you about, the children in Kentucky..." "It'll wait," he answers. "You're not on desk duty." "It'll wait," he repeats. He understands somehow that if he goes without her, even if Scully gives him permission, he will hurt her. And if he did go, he might put her in a position of having to follow him, to pull him out of the fire once again, and she can't do that while they're monitoring her behavior so closely. This is another consequence of their becoming lovers, this hesitation he feels, this need to account for her. While he could shrug off official repercussions to himself, he cannot ignore them for her. He wonders if this is how pregnant women feel, compensating for a weight that wasn't there before; is this what all people feel when the giddy bloom of love wears off and they're left with the substance? "It's only another week." "Mmm." She stretches up and presses a kiss to the base of his neck. "We'll go then." He does want to be working cases with her again; this last week has dragged by. There have been times when they haven't been out in the field for several weeks, but it's different when it's not by choice. It's different when he goes home with her and sees the cost of the day in her face. But she's been doing well with the fallout of Pfaster's return, all things considered, and it has always helped them to be out in the field. And tonight, when they get back, he'll take her away from her scrubbed and sanitized apartment, out to dinner. God, how long has it been since he's even noticed Valentine's Day? He and Diana hadn't been together on Valentine's Day. Before that had been Renee, and he'd been away on a case and forgotten to call; they hadn't lasted through the end of February. Before that must have been Phoebe, her mouth tasting of cigarette smoke and dark chocolate from the box of Black Magic chocolates he'd given her in lieu of a burnt offering. She'd tasted the sacrifice with careful delicacy before reaching for the button on his pants and purring, "I know you wanted to go to the Bop, but I'd rather find out the secret of *your* Black Magic box." And before that, Therese, giggling from the bottle of champagne that he'd paid Tommy Dorson to buy for him, telling him that in 3rd grade she'd cut a heart out of red construction paper and almost sent it to him but she'd been too shy and Scully, at dinner, will wear black velvet and her mouth will taste of wine and chocolate and caramel and she will be laughing-- She shifts in his arms, settling herself more comfortably, and he smooths his hand over her shoulder and smiles ruefully. He doesn't even know if she owns a black velvet dress. "We're going out tonight, right?" he whispers. "Mmm hmmm," she mumbles. He can tell the moment she falls fully asleep, when her body becomes lax and heavy. Maybe she will wear velvet; maybe she will laugh. She will, almost certainly, fall asleep in his arms again tomorrow night, a small and solid weight. He wishes, sometimes, that he had had at least one normal, committed, adult relationship before Scully, something to let him know if this feeling he has of being molded and reshaped is normal, something to let him know that he is not failing her. Maybe it wouldn't have helped; maybe this elemental thing between them could not be categorized or explained. But they are both so damaged, so full of defenses, and he feels at sea in a way that he hasn't since they were first working out the parameters of their partnership. The stakes are so much higher now, though, and he has no guidelines to fall back on. His parents' relationship was no model to follow, and his own relationships have been disasters. He knows better than to rely on the Lone Gunmen for relationship advice. He and Scully will have to muddle through this on their own; maybe every so often she can deliver a State of the Partnership address, Scully in her glasses standing behind a podium telling him that their teamwork skills are good but their communication skills need work and Jesus, Mulder, she'd come to his room with wine and cheese and what had he thought she'd meant? *** When he wakes again, the room is lighter and they are sleeping back to back again. He rubs grit from his eyes and sits up, glancing at the clock. 5:40. The alarm will ring in another hour. He slides out of the bed, pulling the covers back up to Scully's neck, and heads for the bathroom. On the way back, he stops by the window, pushing aside the curtain. Only a few inches of snow have fallen this time, and the streets are already clear and wet, with gray slush at the end of driveways. A few cars and an early-morning delivery truck go by, the wind blowing snow from its roof in a mist. His mother had only cleaned the snow off the windshields, enough to see, but his father had insisted on sweeping the snow off the entire car so that it wouldn't start sliding from the roof of the car onto the windshield in melting pieces when the car warmed up. He misses the father he'd once thought he'd had, the one who had taught him the right way to hold a bat, who had sent him to help Mrs. Halovich because they were neighbors, who had told him always to speak with respect to his mother. There is rustling behind him, and he turns. Scully has turned over on her back, her hand reaching out to where he had been, and as he watches she frowns and half-awakens. Her voice is still blurry when she asks, "Mulder? You okay?" "Yeah." He heads back to the bed. "Just checking how much snow fell." He doesn't even think she hears him; she has twisted around onto her stomach and appears to be well on her way to sleep again. He slides into bed again, on his back, close to Scully but not quite touching. After a moment her hand slides from her pillow to his arm. "You're cold," he hears her murmur, and then she is shifting closer, pressing her side against his. He feels some small, tight-held defense slip and crumble inside him, eroding under the light weight of Scully's hand, transmuting into another layer of ground beneath his feet. Her warmth is slowly seeping through him. Turning his head on the pillow, he can see her sleeping face, pale and pristine as newly fallen snow, her lips parted slightly. He watches her until his own eyes begin to close again. She'll be there when you wake, he tells himself, and dreams. End Feedback always appreciated at marianicole29@yahoo.com