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Reckoning

Author: Ann K

Rating: NC-17

Classification: Story, MS Angst, U/RST, and DS-uh-something (but nothing 
serious). If you adamantly opposed to any sort of DS interaction, proceed with 
caution-you have been warned.

Timeline: Written post DeadAlive in a divergent timeline from the rest of Season 
eight. I do presume no baby William in this story, just to make life less 
complicated. Sorry.

Summary: Agents Scully, Mulder and Doggett finish their first
field assignment together, giving Scully the opportunity to define her changing 
relationship with Mulder-only Doggett is caught in the middle.

Disclaimer: I maintain no pretenses that I own them or make any
money off of this. If only.

Feedback welcomed and responded to annhkus@yahoo.com. See author's notes at end.

In response to the November 2001 challenge at Whispers of X.
Challenge items at end.


Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
Wednesday, 10:24 am

"Jesus Christ!" The sudden movement startled him, causing his
feet to shift beneath him on the slippery terrain. He was on
his back, sliding down the short hillside, until a scrubby group of trees broke 
his fall. Damn, but he hated this assignment.

"Agent Doggett?" Her questioning voice rang out against the nearby mountains. A 
sharp contrast to his frustrated curse, her voice was as smooth as silk, edged 
with a note of concern. Agent Scully was many things, he had decided, but she 
was almost always unflappable and the consummate professional. He met her gaze 
as he slowly got to his feet, climbing back up to the trail. "Are you alright?"

"Fine. Just fine," he muttered, frustrated and more than a little embarrassed. 
He had been off center since this assignment began, slower somehow, more clumsy. 
He didn't like the feeling. "Something ran across my feet up there. A rodent. 
Startled me. I lost my balance." Sounded simple enough. So why did everything 
feel so complicated?

She nodded somewhat absently as he reached the top of trail,
turning her attention back to the maps bunched in her hand. "Hmm. Probably a 
black-footed ferret. We are in the area where they are being reintroduced to the 
wild. They are probably still showing some signs of domestication from their 
time in captivity. About a foot long, short legs, long body?"

He grunted something in the affirmative, not really paying attention to her 
words. "They were almost extinct in 1985, so the government captured the 
remaining wild ferrets and have been breeding them."

He watched her lips as she spoke, a stray wisp of hair catching
in the early summer breeze as they walked back to the car. Maybe that's what 
felt off. Him and Agent Scully and Agent Mulder. On a field assignment together. 
They had been working in the same office for weeks now, but this was different. 
Being on the road only magnified their issues and hell, they certainly had them. 
Like some sort of warped dysfunctional family.

His more-than-platonic feelings for Agent Scully, which he had
admitted to himself some time ago. Her annoying ability to focus only on work 
when he knew there was more going on behind that often-impenetrable gaze. The 
sexual merry-go-round she and Agent Mulder were on. The tension was so thick he 
could almost taste it.

He drew in his wandering thoughts as they drove slowly onto the
deserted byway.

"Nothing else out here to find, Agent Scully. I suppose we can
sign off on those final reports and head back to DC in the
morning," he said, trying to focus on the work in front of them. Nothing had 
come out of the strange series of disappearances reported in the park over the 
past month. It frustrated the hell out of him to have nothing to show for his 
work, their work, over the past few days, but he had decided that such results 
should be added as a tagline to almost any case that crossed their desk.

He could tell by her permanently wrinkled forehead and the tired lines around 
her eyes that Scully was on-edge and probably more than a little frustrated. She 
agreed with him absentmindedly, murmuring something about checking in with 
Mulder back at the motel, and closed her eyes, effectively ending the 
conversation. Since Mulder had-well, risen from the dead, in a literal sense, 
Doggett had been able to catalogue Scully's emotions. Euphoria, frustration, 
delight, sadness. Having Mulder back in the office had been a dramatic change 
for all them. And, now, here they were. The motley, dysfunctional crew known as 
the X-Files, arriving to save the day while they destroyed each other.

God, he needed a vacation.



Buffalo Bill Bungalow
Wednesday, 1:21 pm

What was the deal with national heroes and cheap motels?
Couldn't they come up with an original name? The Sam Houston Motor Lodge in 
Texas. The Lewis and Clark Inn in California. The Davy Crockett Den in .... She 
couldn't remember, she realized with a sigh. Too many field assignments with 
Mulder. The faded sign mocked her frustration. "The Buffalo Bill Bungalow. He 
never slept here, but he wished he did."

Mulder. There was her subject of never-ending frustration. And fascination. 
After all their years working together, they had seen so much. He was her best 
friend. With the addition of Agent Doggett and Mulder's reappearance, however, 
their relationship changed. He was quiet, more subdued. And the ubiquitous 
sexual tension was nearing a breaking point.

"Agent Scully?" She stared back at Doggett blankly, having forgotten about him 
for a brief moment. "I said, would you like to consult with Agent Mulder now, or 
wait until after lunch?" Consult? She would never become accustomed to Doggett's 
quirky sense of formality. "Now is fine. Then I'll treat the two of you to lunch 
at the Buffalo Bill Bar and Quick Stop." She was trying to lighten the mood. She 
knew that Doggett was as aware of tension within the group as she was.

It was turning summer in Yellowstone, and she could feel afternoon heat in the 
air. It drifted beneath her skirt and blouse as she walked quickly to Mulder's 
motel room, stopping for the briefest of moments to admire the forest behind the 
bland concrete bungalow, the leaves a million different shades of green and the 
sky a stark blue contrast to the colorful landscape. How many scenes had Mulder 
taken her to see?

"Mulder, I..." she began as she pushed open the door, and then stopped short. He 
was sitting at the lone table by the bed, obviously jotting notes from his 
morning's meeting. His glasses. Damn. She felt her heart literally skip a beat. 
There was something about Mulder in his glasses, even though he rarely wore them 
anymore, which always caught her attention.

To be completely honest, it aroused her, plain and simple.

She tried again. "No luck at the last site," her voice sounding husky to her own 
ears. Good, Scully. Give both Mulder and Doggett something to wonder about. She 
cleared her throat, trying for a more professional tone. "Seems as if the local 
PD did a fairly thorough job last week. We haven't been able to find any 
evidence that there was any foul play-or anything else-involved with the 
disappearances."

She watched as Mulder's eyes drifted from her, to Doggett, then back to her 
again. Behind his glasses, they were almost unreadable. Damn. She hated when he 
was like this. His silence often said more than words ever could.

She stood, feeling self-conscious, as Doggett settled into an empty chair and 
flipped through the notes Mulder passed over to him. She focused on Mulder's 
voice. "Nothing much turned up from the last eyewitness accounts either. At 
least we got a free trip to Wyoming."

He grinned, a self-deprecating, yet tired smile, and Scully felt the tensions go 
down a notch as a glimmer of the Mulder she knew returned. "This whole thing is 
almost funny, Scully. All three victims were in perfect health, according to 
your review of their medical records. No mounting debt, family problems, 
depressions. No illegitimate children or sordid love triangles."

His words hung in the air for a moment before he continued. "But, for whatever 
reason, they simply vanished. Hell, who knows why?" She felt an almost physical 
pain at Mulder's words, her heart breaking, as she knew exactly what he was 
thinking. It had only been a few weeks since Mulder literally woke from the 
dead, and the evidence was still fresh in her eyes. The scars across his face 
were beginning to heal, but in so many other ways, he was a different person. 
She knew he was haunted by what he had seen, and she sensed the rift between 
them widening. She also knew that Mulder was reading between the lines on this, 
searching for a correlation to his own disappearance.

"It's not there, Mulder," she whispered, surprising herself by articulating her 
thoughts. "We've seen no connection with alien abductions here, and my intuition 
tells me we won't find any."

The silence was awkward at best until Doggett cleared his throat, mumbling 
something about packing for their return flight. It made Scully sad, watching 
Doggett fumble along beside them, trying to stay out of their way, but trying to 
work with them, too. What a mess.

"Mulder," she began, as the door shut behind Doggett. "I think we need to talk." 
He wasn't interested. "About what, Scully? The case? You? Me? I don't have much 
to say at this point. I'll check back in with you when I do." He gave her a 
frustrated glance, walking away from her to fill a glass of water from the 
bathroom tap.

Scully stared in fascination, watching his long fingers tighten around the cheap 
plastic cup in his hands. She never grew tired of watching Mulder. Ignoring all 
the warning signs, she walked up behind him, putting her arms around his waist 
and resting her cheek on his back. He smelled like home, like all the memories 
they had together.

"Damn it, Scully," he practically shouted, whirling around and grabbing her by 
her wrists. "Can you leave it alone? Can you give me some space?" She stared at 
him, dumbfounded. And then he kissed her, and she couldn't stop the moan that 
escaped from her lips. It was a hard, angry kiss, born of too many nights apart 
and too much unsaid between them, but it felt perfect. Her tongue danced between 
his lips and she let her hands run through his hair, stopping to rest on her 
shoulders.

He pushed her away. She heard his watch ticking in the agonizing silence and 
waited for him to speak. "I'm sorry, Scully. Can I have some time alone? 
Please?" It wasn't really as much of a question as a plea, Mulder refusing to 
meet her eyes in the harsh light of the motel room. Progress had been made, 
though to what end, she wasn't sure, and she nodded her head, walking out of the 
room without a sound.



Buffalo Bill Bar and Quick Stop
Wednesday, 6:15 pm

Mulder sat alone in the nearly deserted diner, nursing his cold cup of coffee 
and flipping through a week's old copy of the Washington Post and watching night 
fall over the nearby mountains. He felt lousy, angry with himself and, by 
extension, the world in general. Generally, he felt like an ass. But he didn't 
know what to do about it. It didn't help matters that he found himself at odds 
with the one person whose memory had
sustained him throughout the past year.

"Agent Mulder." He sensed Doggett standing beside him even before the older man 
spoke. The new thorn in his side. A decent enough person, he supposed, but he 
had his hands full dealing with Scully and nightmares and overdue bills and a 
general sense of discomfort to play the welcome wagon. Against his better 
judgment, he nodded to the empty booth across from him as Doggett signaled the 
waitress for a cup of coffee.

They sat like that for a moment, not necessarily uncomfortable silence. Just 
silence. "Anything interesting in the Post?" He looked down, having forgotten 
about the paper, and was startled to see the obituary section staring back at 
him. Karma, he thought.

"Not much. Ken Kesey died. The crazy guy who wrote the book about the mental 
hospital." Doggett nodded. "Didn't he serve as the inspiration for that electric 
kool-aid acid book?"
Pause. "Don't look so surprised, Agent Mulder. I am not the most avid reader, 
but I did go through a rebellious stage in the seventies. Maybe we all do, to 
some degree."

Mulder didn't realize he had reacted to Doggett's words. And his new partner 
didn't strike him as one who would have read Wolfe or Kesey or anyone else for 
that matter. "I'm not necessarily surprised, Agent Doggett. I can't say that I 
know too much about you, except that Agent Scully thinks highly of you and you 
helped her out when I was gone." When I couldn't be there for her, he thought 
with a touch of resentment.

He took his last sip of coffee, wincing at the bitterness. "I need to start 
packing for tomorrow," he announced unnecessarily, searching in his pockets for 
change.

He needed to get away from here, from Doggett, back to his apartment so he could 
again sort through what remained of his life and try to find some semblance of 
order. He jumped at Doggett's hand on his arm, and was taken aback by the 
intense gaze in the man's eyes. "Mulder, whatever it is you are dealing with, I 
can't begin to understand. I don't think I want to. But you are dragging Scully 
down with you."

He pulled back from Doggett, almost burning at the touch, and stared at him 
somewhat coldly. His words resonated around him, and he felt a familiar response 
to a situation that was beyond his control-defensiveness. He didn't need anyone 
else, certainly not Scully's pseudo-partner, telling him what he was doing to 
Scully. He could see it with his own eyes.

"You are right, Agent Doggett," he muttered, standing up and throwing a few 
crumpled bills on the table. "You have no idea what I am going through." Mulder 
whirled around, feeling a desperate need to get out of the diner, and was 
shocked to find himself staring at Scully. Her eyes were wide, and then she 
blinked, reaching out for his arm to steady him. "Mulder? What is going on?"

He could only stare at her, mute, and walked quickly past her to the door.



Buffalo Bill Bungalow
Wednesday, 7:27 pm

"Dana, wait a moment." She was angry, damn angry. How dare Mulder treat her like 
that, after all they had been through together? Why did he refuse to talk to 
her, to help her make sense of what was going on? She felt rather than heard 
Doggett's footsteps behind her as she walked away, in any direction. As long as 
it was away from Mulder.

"Agent Doggett," she replied angrily, disdain dripping from her voice. "I don't 
think there's anything you can say to me at this moment that would help, and I 
don't think I want to
hear it in any case."

He caught her by the arm just as she reached the end of the parking lot. She 
whirled around in her anger, pushing him against the dingy wall of the motel. It 
wasn't him she was furious at, but he would do.

"How dare you? How dare you presume to understand something you could never 
begin to comprehend?" He was angry, she realized as an afterthought. If there 
was any confusion, his words defined his anger. "You are right, Agent Scully. I 
can never understand what you and Mulder have, and I am fucking tired of 
trying." Was that disgust in his voice? "But I understand you, better than I 
would even want to, and I am tired of watching you deflate under the weight of 
whatever agonies you bring on yourself."

She was stunned. Never in their short partnership had he spoken to her like 
that, and she didn't quite know what to make of it. He grabbed both her arms, 
pulling her closer to him in the darkness. "Make yourself happy, Agent Scully. 
Make a choice. Because you are killing all of us."

She couldn't help herself. She reached out to caress his cheek, the soft stubble 
on his face tickling her hand. Why not? she thought angrily. What did she have 
to lose? She was breathless, infuriated, and afraid. Aroused. And she kissed 
him. He met her lips tentatively at first, unsure of how to react to her 
onslaught.

Scully wasn't sure of what she wanted. She only knew she wanted to feel 
something, anything. She pushed him back against the wall, his hard body 
wrapping around hers. He kissed her powerfully, pulling her head back with his 
hands, his fingers laced through her hair. She sensed a sister storm dwelling 
under Doggett's surface, and wondered belatedly if she had unleashed more than 
she bargained for.

"John."

She wasn't sure what she wanted to say, but he took advantage of her open mouth 
to plunge deeper with his tongue, toying with her, daring her to continue what 
she started. She groaned, recognizing only that she was lost in his touch.

Scully felt him beneath her hands, and knew, in that moment, she could have him. 
Could have him beside the dimly lit soda machine in some god forsaken motel in 
Wyoming, could feel his touch on her skin and his mouth on her breasts. She 
could experience what it would be like for him to loose his calm sense of 
formality and take her in a way she could never imagine. Only she had never 
imagined it, never with Doggett. It was always Mulder who filled her fantasies.

He traced his hands down her face, his light touch betraying the tension she 
could feel under her hands. She caught her breath as his hands wandered further 
and stopped, touching her in a way that Scully found unexpectedly both amusing 
and touching. He hesitated for only a moment as she groaned into his mouth. She 
felt her heart race faster and knew she should say no, should stop this crazy 
torment that she had instigated for the both of them.

"Stop." For a moment, she was impressed with her willpower. Then she realized 
the voice was not hers. "We can't do this, Dana. Not this." She pulled away from 
him, somewhat stunned, and stared for a moment. His shirt was open wide at the 
collar, and he seemed unable to take his gaze away from her lips, which she 
could feel were red and swollen. She felt lost, like a child.

Taking in a ragged breath, he leaned down to pick up her sweater, laying in the 
dirt and dried leaves of the parking lot. She tried to remember how it got there 
when his voice
brought her back to reality. "We can't do this for two reasons, Agent Scully, 
both of which you know." His use of her professional title caused her to cringe 
as she felt him
grasp for pieces of the wall that had always been between them. What had she 
done? "One, I respect you as my colleague and partner. And, two."

He hesitated, and she drew herself up to her full height to face him. She knew 
what he was going to say before he said it, because the words had been 
reverberating in her head since she touched him. It was her mantra, her cross to 
bear. He said it anyway. "I'm not Agent Mulder, Dana. I never will be. And 
Mulder is the one you want."

No shit. Such was her first admittedly ungracious thought. She agonized over the 
realization that she could never replace Mulder because there wasn't another 
him. She was looking for something that didn't exist except in the one place she 
refused to go.

John Doggett had been a loyal partner and a decent friend, and she had crossed 
the line. Embarrassment didn't begin to describe how she felt. She was 
mortified, guilty, beyond the normal Catholic guilt, which reared its ugly head 
more often than she cared to admit.

This was different. "I'm sorry, Agent Doggett," she managed to whisper, her 
shame heavy as she drew her sweater closer to her body, rambling on. "I'm not 
sure what came over me, except that..." He cut her off, his eyes betraying the 
depth of his torture that he worked so hard to keep out of his voice.

His eyes shifted across the parking lot, and then came back to her, his gaze 
sympathetic. "I think that's the person you are going to have to explain things 
to. I know a lot more than I think you understand. And I am not the one to try 
to fix something that ain't even broken."

Watching him walk away from her, she felt her heart sink. She could sense Mulder 
behind her, attempting to absorb what he had just seen. She steeled herself for 
battle and turned to face him.

She could only stare at Mulder as her mind raced through a million different 
ways to explain what had just happened. His dark, intense gaze, the ruffle of 
his hair, illuminated by the harsh light from the single bulb directly behind 
him. The way he looked at her as if she were the only person left standing on 
the planet. In her heart, she knew that, for Mulder, she was.

What was between them that was so insurmountable? She couldn't find an answer 
for that as he turned away from her, his long legs carrying him quickly across 
the deserted parking lot to his motel room.

"Mulder," she shouted, racing after him. It was not going to be like this. They 
had been through enough, and she refused to live anymore with the self-imposed 
agonies. "Mulder," she screamed again, catching the door just as he entered the 
room.

He was angry. "Scully," he began, his voice laden with a tone that made her 
cringe. "I had no idea you and John were so close. Please, don't let me get in 
the way of whatever it
is that makes you happy."

He moved towards the door, refusing to look at her. She stopped him, her hands 
on his arm, and willed him to understand. "Stop it, Mulder. What you saw was 
nothing. What you saw was me making a mistake. What you saw was..." He grabbed 
her by the shoulders, taking her by surprise. "Tell me, Scully. Tell me what I 
saw, because I don't think I can play this game anymore." It was the hurt in his 
voice, the raw, exposed anguish, which finally brought tears to her eyes.

"Mulder, when you were taken, I have never felt so alone in my entire life. 
Agent Doggett said he would help me find you. And he did. He also kept me 
grounded in sanity at a time when everything was going insane. But he is not 
you, Mulder. He is not..." She didn't know how to explain it. "What is he to 
you, Scully?" Mulder pressed. "What am I to you?"

She could only stare at him, feeling like she was seeing him for the first time 
since he awoke in the hospital bed. She saw the changes in their world through 
his eyes, and felt, rather than only imagined, his anxiety, his confusion, his 
frustration. She wanted to weep at all she had lost in these past few weeks. 
But, even more than that, she wanted to make
him understand. "He is our partner, Mulder. Our partner. You are my other half. 
You are my truth."

She felt naked, exposed, and realized she had just revealed her most personal 
intimacy to the man that meant everything to her. He sat down quietly on the 
bed, as if overwhelmed by her response, and dropped his head into his hands. 
"Scully," she heard him say, his voice muffled, "I don't know where I fit in 
anymore. Everything has changed since I've been gone. Even you."

She opened her mouth to disagree, to tell him that she hadn't
changed, but stopped for a moment, realizing that, in Mulder's eyes, she had. 
Even working with Doggett in a superficial, professional relationship was, to 
Mulder, a betrayal. "I thought coming here on this case might give me some 
answers, that we might find out more about why I was taken. But I am looking 
everywhere for something that is nowhere. There are no answers."

She knelt down in front of him and laid her head in his lap. There was nothing 
left to say. She could never offer the words Mulder so desperately wanted to 
hear, could never give
him-them-the time he wanted returned. No one could. He ran his fingers through 
her hair, gently at first, and then with an increasing degree of pressure. 
Looking up, she was startled to see the silent tears streaming down his face, 
and felt her heart break a little more.

Without hesitation, she kissed his face, tasting the salty tears beneath her 
lips and hearing Mulder's sharp breath. He held still as she ran her tongue down 
his cheeks, licking away
the moisture, until she reached his lips. The world stopped for the briefest of 
moments, and she swore Mulder's ragged breath was echoing throughout her entire 
body. His breath, his heartbeat became her own.

"Lie down, Mulder," she murmured. He hesitated slightly, and she added a quiet 
"please" to her request, needing to give this to him, to herself. He settled 
down against the paisley bedspread, his eyes focusing on some faraway spot on 
the ceiling, as she slowly unbuttoned his blue dress shirt. He was as beautiful 
as ever, she thought, as she traced the
healing scars with her tongue, flicking lightly as she reached down to his 
navel.

"Beautiful," she whispered as she began to unbuckle his pants. She felt as if 
she were swimming underwater, her hands feeling like a stranger's. He sat up, 
muttering something to make her stop. She placed her hand lightly on his chest. 
"Let me, Mulder. Please. For both of us." He had never denied her, and she could 
see by the look in his eyes-the raging mixture of pain and desire and love and 
amusement-that he wouldn't
start now.

She pulled his pants and boxers off in one easy swoop, tracing her hand down his 
bare leg as she did so. God, he was exquisite. Every scar, every muscle, she 
memorized, recalling
all too clearly the agony of his absence, and the comfort she took in his 
memory. He was completely still, but aroused. She fought the urge to take him 
into her mouth right away.
Instead, she managed to utter, "Roll over." He began to sit up, obviously 
wanting to get away, and she put one hand on his chest, shivering at his warmth. 
"Please, Mulder. Trust
me."

He stared, a million words passing between them unsaid, and rolled over, the bed 
shifting lightly under his weight. She let her hands drift lightly down his 
back, and reached down to follow her path with her tongue. Mulder groaned, and 
she repressed a smile. She wanted to touch him, to taste all of him, to remind 
herself that he was here; that whatever
had changed between them was never enough to erase all that they had together.

"Please, Scully," he groaned. "Don't do this if you have no intention of 
finishing what you started." She pulled her sweater over her head as she leaned 
down to whisper in his
ear. "I have every intention, Mulder, as long as you will let me." She lay on 
top of him, feeling the warmth of his skin beneath her, and ran her hands down 
his back to his legs.
He shifted, unable to stop himself. "I want you, Scully. I always have," he 
managed to moan.

Scully ignored his comment, focusing instead on tasting his skin, salty with 
sweat from their day's work. As she reached his lower back, she felt him tense 
underneath her, but she couldn't stop herself. Wouldn't stop. She spread him 
lightly with her hands and flicked her tongue against his anus, moving to the 
base of his penis.

He jerked away from her, flipping her onto her stomach and pulling her skirt up 
to her waist in one easy movement. He was on top of her as she lay face down 
into the bed, and she couldn't remember a time where she felt more. More loved. 
More aroused. More sure that she belonged to Mulder. "Turnabout is fair play, 
huh, Scully?" His voice was gruff, heavy with arousal and tension. He reached 
his hand beneath her and found her wetness, groaning out loud as he slipped his 
fingers inside. Mulder wrapped his free hand around her neck as he pushed into 
her, and Scully thought she could come at that very moment.

But this was about something else. This was about Mulder, and she wanted to etch 
every second of this moment in her memory. It had been so long, too long.

She felt her hips twitch against him uncontrollably, and knew they were both 
near the edge. The emotions of the past six weeks alone were enough to push them 
over. She reached her arm up, finding his head and pulling him down to her with 
a crook of her elbow. "I want you, Mulder," she said softly, trying to maintain 
her composure. She could only feel him on top of her, his fingers playing inside 
of her, his warm breath in her
ear.

He bent closer to her. "Did you want me while I was away, Scully? Did you dream 
of me at night? Did you see me everytime you opened your eyes? Because I saw you 
and dreamt of you and tasted you-" And then he was in her, and a shudder went 
through
her body. "And I felt you, Scully, always on my skin, in my arms." She could 
hardly breathe, could barely process Mulder's words.

She felt his barely controlled sense of possession as he thrust deeper inside of 
her, moving with a sense of deliberateness, an almost feral cry coming out of 
him. "Tell me, Scully," he managed to whisper, the words sounding as if they 
were coming from a man drawing his last breath.

Or drawing his first.

She wept, the physical sensations combining with her fragile state of mind. "Oh, 
Mulder," she said, groaning as he pushed deeper inside of her, bumping against 
her cervix and stopping for the briefest of moments. "Your memory sustained me. 
It was you, it has always been you."

-and he was crying out her name, and she could only feel his heat and his 
fingers and his cock as she came. He followed her quickly, repeating her name 
over and over like a plea for... forgiveness? Acceptance?

"Oh, Mulder," she uttered as the shudders began to subside, her voice cracking 
with emotion. He rolled her over quickly, her skirt still tangled around her 
waist, and simply held her against him.

She closed her eyes, listening to his heartbeat beneath her head. "You're home, 
Mulder. We're home." His plea was one for peace, and she prayed that she would 
have the strength to give it to him.

END

Challenge items: angry, horny Doggett; MS UST; a ferret; allusion to one or more 
of three books (Milton's Paradise Lost, Barrington's Intimate Wilderness, 
Wolfe's Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test); Mulder's glasses; an allusion to, or the 
act of, rimming; reference to the Sam Houston Motor Lodge of Bad Blood fame

Author's note: This piece was not intended to be so angsty, but this is what 
resulted from a combination of the challenge items and my feelings that Mulder's 
abduction and subsequent return were not fully explored at the end of season 
eight. I wanted more, especially how he and Scully reconciled Mulder's feeling 
that he no longer "fit in."

Ken Kesey did pass away during the month of November 2001, and my notation of 
that in this piece was not only a reference to the challenge item, but also a 
small homage to an incredible author and observer of the twentieth century.

I am hesitant to say too much about the character of John Doggett, as I know 
some fans have strong feelings regarding him and the changes in TXF one way or 
another, but I do
think it is plausible that tension exists between he and Scully (and Mulder), 
and, in fan fic at least, that tension could reveal itself sexually.

Thanks to my hubby for being my reader, XF viewing companion, and best friend.