Waiting In Motion (5/10) By mountainphile mountainphile@yahoo.com MSR, NC-17 Header and Disclaimer info in Part 1 ******************** The room feels stark and cool without Mulder's presence. He left a message with Skinner's office earlier this morning, briefing him on their whereabouts and the weather conditions. Should the storm system grow as big as expected, then DC will get its fair share of the wealth too. Their tardiness will be understood, if not excused outright. Sleep is out of the question now. Her eyelids refuse to close and, since drinking in both coffee and impromptu Bible lesson, she feels her blood moving, her thoughts slowly gathering momentum. She might as well do some work on the Sullivan report that still languishes in her suitcase. Keeping busy, as Ruth observed, will make the wait for Mulder somewhat more bearable. As for housekeeping, Scully suspects she may be on her own. The bed needs making and her sense of order from as far back as childhood demands neatness before she can be productive. She tosses the pillows aside. Gathering the top sheet and blanket, her lips part in surprise, aware for the first time of the telltale splatter-pattern on the bed. Leave it to her jaded and work-worn brain to equate blood evidence with the myriad of semen stains their lovemaking has left behind on the bottom sheet. She's forgotten how messy sex can be... especially spontaneous, prolonged sex in the dark. Thank God one of her biggest fears has been assuaged -- despite size and height differential and the unique emotional baggage they both haul into this relationship, she and Mulder seem to be quite compatible sexually. In essence, if all other communication failed outside the bedroom they could theoretically fall into the sheets and let their bodies make amends. She remembers the words he spoke last night, at the close of their misunderstanding... "Listen, if you want to know the real reason we're sticking around, just wait for me over on the bed." She accepted his proposal and slid to the middle, careful to stay atop the blanket. Leaning back against their pillows in her silky pajamas, she felt it would be prudent to cross her stretched legs at the ankles. Hopefully her bare feet wouldn't grow too chilly, but it would be flirting with disaster to burrow them under the bedding, knowing Mulder's carnal intentions. She needed answers first. He also said that buddies share... and that she should trust him, because he would come clean. That looked to be forthcoming when he knelt before the suitcase and extracted several file folders. "Hold onto your pillow, Scully," he warned, winking at her guardedness. He drew himself across the bed's bottom, moving with the feral grace of a cat before settling on his side to face her, head propped on one elbow. Her feet, if she dared extend them a few inches more, would brush his chest. She glanced over the length of his body -- the muscled black of his tee shirt, his pajama bottoms with the suggestive bulge at their dark crotch. His legs bent at the knee while he rubbed one naked foot against the opposite ankle and calf, his long toes arching and clenching. Nothing she hadn't seen at one time or another for years... but now the sight of him made her knees weak and her pulse race. It startled her afresh to realize how easily, effortlessly this man could arouse her. Several manila folders fanned out next to them on the pilled surface of the blanket, like a bridge of information in the soft yellow glow of the lamp. Outside, the storm persisted with sporadic, rumbling thunder and pebbly drops spatted against the windowpane. "So," she ventured, "we're *buddies*... Mulder?" "The best." "And what were we before?" He grinned and leaned over her feet, seizing her big toe with his lips and tongue in a hot swirling kiss and releasing it with a reluctant pop at her protest. "Jesus... " "Something we're not going back to, if I can help it. Here, feast your eyes on this -- " He tossed up a small object into the depression between her thighs. Baffled, she turned the strip around in her hand, as if by feeling its shape and hardness she could divine its origin. "This, if I'm not mistaken, is synthetic polymer from the Pittsfield case... left from the soles of the gym shoes worn by those teenagers. At least that's what you concluded back then," she added. "'Back in the day'... " He looked up from sifting through the files and papers in front of him. "Brand-new sneaks, too. No wonder Nike's having trouble on the international market." "I'm not sitting here out of idle curiosity, or because of a burning interest in corporate sales." "I know. The truth is, you can't wait for me to finish pitching this spiel, so you can crawl over here and have your way with me." She lowered her head and pressed amused lips together. "You know, you're walking on very thin ice." Elbowing his body closer, he gathered both her feet against his chest with one large hand, squeezing her toes against the warm expanse of tee shirt-covered midriff. "Speaking of ice... " "I hope you heard me." His mischievous smile was answer in itself. "Now... it's quiz time," he announced. "I'm in need of a scientific opinion, Dr. Scully. Let's hear everything you know about tachyons." "Tachyons?" She felt baffled. "Well, other than hearing them mentioned in connection with *emissions* on a long- running sci-fi show... they're theoretical at best. They don't exist." "Just humor me, then. Elaborate." "If you don't tickle," she warned. He smiled and settled in, one hand behind his head like a pillow, but still holding onto her feet with the other. Her soles were warming quite nicely against his body, kneading into his chest like a kitten while they talked. His fingertips rubbed over her nails and absently explored the soft indentations between each small toe. She'd always felt awkward, even shy when anyone tried to handle that part of her body, considering it too personal to permit. But with Mulder it was a silly, disarming, intimate gesture that heightened her giddiness. How many years had it been since a lover had wanted to play with her feet, evoking such a curious combination of sensations within her? "You're getting into physics here," she began after accepting the sensual roaming of his fingertips. "A tachyon, as I understand it, is a particle that has the capacity to travel faster than the speed of light, besides being a hypothetical source of energy." "Why doesn't it exist?" "Because," she stated, her words slow and clear, her brows arched for emphasis, "it's a well-known, widely accepted fact that *nothing* can travel faster than the speed of light." "So it's an anomaly." His words slurred from the heavy press of his cheek on the palm of his hand. Leaning sideways, he seemed dreamily focused on what his other hand was doing. "It has to be classifiable and measurable to be considered an anomaly. The tachyon is neither... so cannot be explained by any currently accepted scientific theory. It's pure fantasy. And *you* are clutching at straws." By now his restless fingers had abandoned her feet and were creeping with seductive strokes past the satin of her instep. He massaged her anklebones where she crossed them and the sensation on her skin sent warm waves of pleasure shimmering to her crotch. "Mulder... is it too much to ask that you stay on task here?" He paused before sliding fingers around the curve of her lower legs. Gently forcing his hand from underneath and between the silky, pajama-covered calves, he murmured, "Fantasy aside... suppose tachyons *do* exist and can travel faster than light-speed. What then?" Again her body betrayed her. It caught her by surprise, this easy awakening and stirring of her sexual self after so many years of denial and inactivity-by-choice. The greatest revelation of all was that Mulder was the man who'd touched the latent spark. Her partner of seven years, he had the power to quicken her pulse with a mere glance of his eye or touch of his hand. And here she was, leaning back in the bed they were sharing and discussing the physics of a secret case, her body radiating tiny waves of pleasure in spite of her resolve while he insinuated his hand up the crease of her crossed legs. "Just... wait a second... " She closed her eyes, drawing on memory to collect the scattered bits of what she'd read or heard on the subject. Concentration was difficult, with the inexorable, upward progress of his hand between her knees. She reached out to forestall him. It was reminiscent of their backseat ride last week during the Sullivan case, when Mulder grasped her hand in the darkness of the car, teasing her thighs with restive fingers... "Well, *suspending* all standard, scientific belief, you'd have to accept the existence of two inter-dependent universes that inter-connect at some point. There is a visible, sub-light speed universe, which is the one we know and accept -- and then there would be an invisible, faster- than-light one. Highly dense, it could be considered a field, or wave, rather than a universe... " Mulder's mouth settled over her kneecap, blowing into the thin fabric, making a hot, wet spot with his lips and tongue. At her pause, he peered up. "Trust me, I'm all ears. How dense would this field have to be?" "The density of the field would have a direct correlation to the electrical charge and speed of the particles," she said, giving Mulder a mild glare. "At zero energy, they would move faster than light-speed and produce some sort of radiation or light. This reaction somehow decreases the energy of the particle, causing it to accelerate even more. Bearing in mind that this is a *theoretical* world... " She gave him another pointed look and arched brow before continuing. "And objects within it would have a negative mass, the effect would essentially transcend time and space... but the pressure created by the invisible, denser field would then be felt or detected within the physical universe as we know it." "Approximately how much pressure would be needed?" He pushed his hand past the vise of her knees, spreading exultant fingers along the inside of one silky thigh, stroking gently toward her groin as he talked. "Tell me how the presence of a tachyonic wave can be detected, Scully." Mulder's fingers had embarked on a titillating mission. She would've been angry with him, if her legs weren't so ultra- sensitive, if the waves of pleasure radiating from between them would cease and the pit of her stomach stop its melting. She felt herself dampen and throb as he inched toward that center seam in her pajama bottoms. Her cheekbones, she knew, were pink from his attentions and she grew more rattled, feeling like a compromised coed. Mulder, she realized, could see what she felt -- her nipples erect against the fabric of her top, brushing underneath with each quick breath she drew. Damn it, she should really stop this before it brought discussion to a grinding halt... "Well... the faster the acceleration, the greater the reaction within the opposing universe." Her breath hitched as the longest of his fingers made the lightest of touches against her crotch, burning against her tenderness and moving in a dizzying, ever-quickening circle there. "Mulder... " "I'm listening. You were talking about acceleration." "Time, um... could essentially go backward... " The tip of his finger immediately reversed direction over the pulsing spot and her eyes fluttered closed. "... And, um... there would be a radiant, even magnetic, effect... " "Here's to radiant, magnetic effects," he murmured. His own eyes were hooded and wistful, she noted, watching her face as he rode over her soft contours with the pad of his finger. "... A signature that could be seen, or detected... " His tenacious finger strove to work its way within the folds of fabric, to stroke harder against her buried clit. As much as every nerve in her pelvis began to prickle and hum toward release, she knew this was not the time. She needed answers first and couldn't allow Mulder to so easily -- and triumphantly -- steer her from the original purpose of their discussion. Squeezing his forearm with her strong thigh muscles she concluded, "But realize that there is *no* empirical evidence for the existence of tachyons. What I've just told you is pure conjecture. And *this*," she grasped his burrowing fingers with hers, "needs to stop right now." "Conjecture never felt, er, *sounded* so good," he argued. "Enough!" She squirmed and clenched her thighs harder. "Please," she entreated, her voice shaky. "I've humored you and tried to answer your questions... now it's only fair that you give me some answers first -- like you promised." They gazed at one another for long moments. In times past, before they crossed the line to intimacy, she enjoyed the tease, when she'd dazzle him with eclectic scraps of the scientific information she amassed and then reap the admiration that followed. It had been a safe flirtatious exchange over the years, an oblique way to receive the affection she craved. A pseudo-mating ritual they'd perfected. It struck her now, with his chin on her damp knee and his hand imprisoned between her thighs, how far they'd moved beyond the innuendo. "You're sure? I swear this isn't the same wild woman who bit and scolded me for dawdling earlier this afternoon." Regretful eyes, petulant lower lip, slouched shoulder -- his whole demeanor begged for attention. She wove her fingers through his hair, a half-hearted caress to convey apology and to emphasize her present determination. "Very sure. Now come clean, as promised, and let me see what you've got." With reluctance and a sigh he withdrew his hand from beneath her thighs, reached around to extract another small plastic bag from a folder, and then dropped it into her open hands. The movement brought him closer against her on the bed; he rose up higher on one elbow to gauge her reaction and remain well within her space. "What is this?" "Evidence, like the polymer. The same substance, but in another form, found in a different location." Within the bag was a small amount of ashy dust. It resembled campfire or woodstove ash, similar to crematorium debris, but she knew without being told that it couldn't be any of those things. Such an explanation would be too simple. "You didn't just assume this on your own," she said wryly. "May I ask who's tested it?" "The usual gung-ho trio; my gunmen buddies." At the doubt in her face, he'd grinned, that wide, rare, endearing smile she loved. She had to reach out and stroke a lock of his hair again, soft like dark silk between her fingers. "Watch it, Mulder," she murmured. "*This* best buddy doesn't share well with the other children." "Good to know we're on the same page." "And knowing the identities and track record of these closet scientists, I can go with your supposition for the time being. Okay, a polymer, similar in composition to the others. So where does that take us?" He tapped the bag of powder in her hand. "Where have you seen this before, Scully? Care to venture any guesses?" With Mulder's eyes upon her, she cast back within her mind for the answer. She sought and followed the path of mental crumbs, the milestones and landmarks burned within her brain. Prying open closed doors with reluctance, releasing unwelcome memories like phantoms in an effort to catalogue the substance in her hands. The trail would lure her back toward disquieting cases, the ones that left their mark on her body or psyche or both. Realization grew, slowly building in size and force within her like a cancer. Fear, she remembered, staring at the ashy powder. Pain and cold, hypnotic helplessness... "I'm not interested in playing games," she said in a low voice, pushing the bag into his hand. "That's not my intent." He took it from her gently, though his gaze remained on her face. "Just go with it. For me." ... Places of heavy darkness and bright light. On the damp ground of a forest in Oregon, so long ago it seemed like a hazy dream. In caves and sundry other unusual sites indoors and out over the years. Places of scorching and death. Sifting over her like fairy dust on a mountaintop, a gag in her mouth, her joints screaming from cramp. Falling like night snow over a crowd of unsuspecting worshipers, hands upraised on the bridge at Ruskin Dam... The otherworldliness of the connection must have shown in her face, because the sudden weight of Mulder's hand on hers made her jump. "Hey." She shook her head, more to clear it than surrender to the incredulity she felt. He didn't need to know every dark, silent secret in the prison cells of her mind, each waiting its turn for release. Some day maybe... when it was safer and she was closer to healing. "You know very well we found something similar in Oregon years ago. Then why would you want to look here, on *this* mountain," she demanded, "and right after spinning our wheels on that fluky case by the hot spring? Give me one good reason for wanting to be in this godforsaken location during the worst thunderstorm of the year." Mulder inclined his head toward the bag of ash and the polymer nodule where he'd thrown them atop the folders. "After testing the samples, the guys began an investigation of their own. They specifically scanned the areas where these substances were found." "Scanned with what?" She presented him with the most doubtful, unbelieving, withering expression she could muster. "Not important. It just so happens that when they scanned over the mountainous area we're in now... they hit a jackpot. Tachyonic signature out the whazoo. And I figured that after we left the estate, I could kill two birds with one stone. You know, since we were kind of in the neighborhood... " "I don't buy it, Mulder. I hear you saying that none of those substances you showed me were found here, and yet... " He sat up on his hip, hand braced at her side. "You want it straight?" "Just the truth," she whispered, sudden weariness washing over her. "Tell me the truth, as you understand it, and I'll deal with it as best I can." Her glance dropped to the hand that still rested on her thigh. Mulder's hand, large, warm and well shaped -- a familiar part of him touching her, grounding her. She trusted him unswervingly, though he was on the verge of spilling the unbelievable once again and expecting her to join him in espousing it. Listening to the fervor in his voice, she wanted with all her heart to understand him, to accept his words without question. She slid her hand atop his and squeezed. "The truth, then -- as I understand it," he said, amused at her qualification. "Our Gunmen buddies have developed a way to detect tachyonic signature. Find tachyons, you find the evidence we just held in our hands. Concentrations were detected in geographic locations where there have been reported abductions and UFO sightings." Her most recent contact with the supernatural, while Mulder was in England pursuing crop circles, had softened her armor and prepared her for this moment, opening her to new realms of belief. But this... what he claimed as truth was straight from the pages of a science fiction novel. Yet, so much of what she'd seen and experienced with him over seven years' time went beyond normal comprehension. She lifted her hand to cup his face and sensed a softening of his whole demeanor, as if he'd held himself taut and guarded until he heard her response. "Mulder, look at me. Please." Obedient, he lifted his chin and eyes to hers, allowing her hand on his cheek to guide him. Pieces began to sift into place, like white dust from the sky and she began to dissect and categorize them before they landed. His defensive reaction to her knee-jerk skepticism last night in the car. Her attempt to disprove the validity of the weeping statue at the estate, which successfully bonded another layer of failure to the previous crop-circle fiasco. The hot spring, where they finally opened to one another in an intimate way. Then this morning, the "scenic" detour home, Mulder's secrecy, his harshness with the little boy. His odd line of questioning at dinner, badgering the manager, pulling for strange facts and local lore... And all this taking place within the backdrop of their burgeoning new intimacy, struggling to emerge intact from the whirlwind of their past baggage, professional lives, and Mulder's personal quest. "Don't sugar-coat it for me," she murmured. "Don't hold back. No matter how I react, no matter the circumstances. I need to know." "Careful what you ask for." He leaned into her with a sigh, head bent and tucked against her breast as she stroked his hair. At that moment it was not sexual, but simply a gesture of trust and closeness. A man and a woman, inseparable friends, confirming their bond of loyalty to one another and to their cause. "Scully, there are caves and sinkholes in this area. Not many -- they're not listed as tourist attractions in the front of the phone book -- but I want to see whether they're accessible," he continued, his breath hot and moist against her pajama top. "It's possible we're sitting close to a significant tachyonic source, with all the implications. I need to find out." She nodded, too weary to discuss it further. Now, after long minutes of sitting in one position, her body ached for change. She shifted against the pillows, legs coming slightly apart to further accommodate the nuzzling closeness of his body. Embarrassment warmed her cheeks when, like incense, her sweet musky scent eddied up between them. She heard Mulder's deep inhalation and felt the sudden restlessness of his thighs. With a low, desirous groan of approval he snuggled closer, pressing his body against her legs until she felt his erection prod her, while his fingers returned to stroke along the silky crease between her legs. "I vote we take this discussion to another level," he coaxed, "but without the physics this time... and with the light and these PJ's off." "Sure you're not too tired?" "Not for you... or for radiant, magnetic effects." He rose with purpose from the bed, carrying the bags and folders to a spot next to his suitcase, stacking them in a heap. Lightning raged and crackled in the blackness just beyond the windowpane, where the curtains now hung askew. She felt the familiar apprehension prickle along her spine. The uncovered window would be a distraction to her when they began lovemaking in earnest. Better to take care of it now, despite Mulder's presence only a few feet away. With slow, precise movements she crossed the short space from bed to window. "You know, you left the curtains open," she chided, turning toward the glass -- and then stood frozen, agonized and breathless in the sudden explosion of searing flash and numbing, blinding light... ******************** END (5/10) Waiting In Motion by mountainphile