The Awakening

JEYLAN
jeylan@earthlink.net
RATING: NC-17
CATEGORY: MSR
SPOILERS: nope
TIMELINE: Set very early, and one step sideways.
ARCHIVE: Ephemeral, yes. Gossamer, no (I'll send it myself).
Others, please ask.

SUMMARY: Mulder & Scully, younger and less world-weary, make an
unplanned journey to a remote ocean beach. Forget the
relentless way series TV has ground them down, this
story is an invitation to turn back the clock. For
incurable Romantics only.

DISCLAIMER: Chris Carter thought them up. I didn't. I am
grateful to him, and admire his creation. I mean him no
disrespect. I kiss his feet. This story is mine, and I intend
to keep it. However, I do acknowledge unequivocably that the
characters in the story belong to CC, 1013, and Fox. Which is to
say that the copyright holders are entitled to profit by Mulder
and Scully, and I am not. No infringement of their exclusive
right to profit is intended or implied.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: ***HOWEVER*** ... as any writer knows, some
characters develop minds of their own. Some characters come
alive, wake up, slip away from us. We have great power to
manipulate their actions only because their sole access to our
world -- our own "fiction", if you will -- is controlled by us.
But though we manipulate and even profit by them, their spirits
are their own. And the balance is delicate. If an author
doesn't treat his characters with enough respect, if he doesn't
listen closely enough, if he doesn't ask the right questions --
sooner or later "his" characters will start talking in riddles.
Or stop talking at all. That's when he has to make stuff up.

DEDICATION: This story is dedicated with a secret smile to
incurable Romantics everywhere, and to every X-Phile who still
believes that maybe what they let us see on TV isn't always the
whole truth. Lastly, and with deepest love, this story is
dedicated to Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, and to any other
character in ANY fiction who has what it takes to wake up.

THANKS: To my wonderful beta readers, Mo, Marie, and Rae, and to
Brynna and Noelle Leithe for comments, enthusiasm and advice.

BY THE WAY: This story represents my first X-Files attempt. It
started out as an assignment to myself, to try to come to terms
with some slippery literary stuff no one bothered to teach me in
school. I'd love to know if I succeeded.

...And yes, Mulder really HAS read Kate Chopin.

*************************************************************

"THE AWAKENING"

"...the first suggestion, the problem and indirection..."
--Walt Whitman, "On the Beach at Night"

Fox Mulder looked at her, long and steady, but without any heat
in his eyes.

"I'm boring you, aren't I?" she said.

"No, not at all." His voice was smooth. Across the table from
her, in the half light beyond the flickering candle, he sat back
easy, relaxed into the shadows. He had one elbow propped up on
top of the padded bench that lined the wall, and he hadn't moved
much for a while now, all this time she'd been babbling about the
Appalachian Trail. He looked bored. Maybe he thought he looked
mysterious.

She glanced back and forth, very fast, between her date and her
wineglass. "I always talk too much when I'm nervous," she said,
coyly candid. She felt herself start to fidget with her hair.
Red hair, cherry red. Then her hand fell instinctively to the
jade amulet at her throat. Motionless, he watched her every
move. But if he liked anything he saw, he sure wasn't letting
on.

"No, I'm fascinated, really," he said. A full beat late. And he
almost smiled, but his eyes didn't change. Something creepy
about him. Spooky eyes. "Where else do you ... camp?"

This wasn't going well. The small talk was starting to get her
down. Stealing glances around the room at the other diners, she
felt a familiar stab of insecurity, and wondered again why she
couldn't be more like them. The type who fit right in. They all
looked so established, so solid. So certain. No nonsense people
with clearly outlined lives, who understood how the game was
played in Washington. And liked it. The ones who always knew
the right thing to say -- if only they'd had anything interesting
to talk about.

It was a nice restaurant, though. Dim without being dark.
Classic rock in the background. Right now, Steppenwolf -- <Goes
far, flies near, to the stars away from here /
Well you don't know what we could find / Why don't you come with
me little girl / On a magic carpet ride -->

Katlyn sighed.

What she really longed for, lay awake at night aching for, was a
man who believed in something. Someone with a passion. Someone
capable of thinking outside the boxes of a government regulation
form, but without going too far, without buying in blindly to
every latest brand of snake oil. Not just another trendy kook.
A man who could figure out for himself where to draw the line
between fiction and the truth.

"Gods, let's not talk about me." She grabbed for her wine.
"Enough about me. It's your turn. What do you do for ... uh
..." - he still hadn't moved - he was still watching her with the
same look in his eyes - "uh, that is," she cleared her throat.
"What do you do for fun?" Stupid remark -- she couldn't imagine
this guy having fun. "I mean, you don't seem like the outdoor
type."

"I wonder what gave you that idea?" His hand moved. Just his
hand. Reaching for his wine glass. Then his eyes slid away from
her face, glancing over her shoulder. It was a relief, like she
could breath, suddenly.

"Well, what are your interests? I mean, I hear some pretty wild
stuff about you, Fox."

"What stuff is that?" Now he really was smiling, looking at her
over his wine. And something in his eyes ...

"Oh, you know, crazy stuff," she said brightly. "Aliens." And
she laughed. "I mean, I really didn't know what to expect,
tonight, you know."

"Aliens? Katlyn, I'm FBI. I think you have me mixed up with
INS." As he spoke his eyes slid away from her again, and he
tipped two fingers in the air. From the far side of the room, a
bald man with glasses and a suit started towards them. Katlyn
sighed.

Okay, no aliens. Well, that should be a relief. Crap like that
gave the whole Alternative Spirituality movement a bad name,
anyway.

While Fox made introductions and said a couple of words to the
bald guy, Katlyn took the opportunity to be honest with herself
about her date. He wasn't what she'd hoped. Just one more grey
suit in a city of grey suits. Bad tie. Cropped hair. No sense
of humor. Dull conversation. Lusterless vibrations. In fact,
his whole aura seemed damped down, hard to read. Probably
repressed. Probably the kind of guy who jerked off to dirty
magazines and wouldn't even know what to do with a real woman.
All those irresistible rumors about a man who did hard, cold,
real-world investigations of paranormal phenomena -- for the
purpose of understanding, rather than debunking -- those rumors
must have been about someone else. Her sources had their facts
wrong, that's all. Too bad.

He almost glanced her way. By reflex, she smiled her best smile,
but wasn't sure if he noticed.

What was she even doing, here? Served her right for letting
Iridel set her up. They clearly had nothing in common. She
could imagine Fox being polite about alternative medicine, as
long as she didn't push him too far out of his comfort zone by
bringing up chakras, or Reiki, or crystals, or visualization.
'Fox,' she fantasized herself saying, 'do you realize that all of
this, everything we think we see, is really only energy
vibrations which can be shaped and manipulated by the power of
thought?' She hid a grin behind her hand, imagining the look of
shock on his face. Then her smile faded. <Reality isn't as
simple as you think, Fox,> she thought, sadly.

Now that she'd met him it was pretty obvious that getting Iridel
to read his cards was about as daring as this boy got. And
Iridel had said he'd bought some incense, Katlyn remembered, with
a mild queasiness. It had piqued her curiosity at the time, the
thought of a G-man burning incense for Clarity and Inspiration,
but now, meeting him face to face ... It just didn't sit right.
Made her uncomfortable.

She was studying his profile as he talked when, without warning,
he looked right in her eyes, and flashed her a dazzling grin. To
his friend he said, "I'll call Albert Hosteen tomorrow."

"Yeah, do that."

He *was* kind of cute, actually. In a babe-in-the-woods sort of
way. He probably just didn't get out much. In fact, it was
weird, but she actually felt kind of sorry for the guy.

As soon as they were alone again, Fox turned back to her
smoothly. "So, you were saying?"

"What?"

"Aliens? You were asking me about aliens. Do you have any
special interest in extraterrestrials? I mean, you're not an
abductee or anything, right?"

She blinked. For one instant she thought he was mocking her, and
then, looking hard in his eyes, she knew he wasn't. But his
delivery was perfect. Monotone. Absolute deadpan. Suddenly it
clicked. He wasn't being patronizing -- he was teasing!
Sharing a joke, and expecting her to get it. Maybe they *were*
on the same wavelength. Katlyn grinned. She started to laugh.

"What?" he asked innocently, smiling. "What? I take it you
don't believe that We Are Not Alone?"

Katlyn laughed hard, dabbing at the corners of her eyes. "You
know, Fox, I've gotta tell you. I really had you pegged wrong."

He took a slow, thoughtful sip of his wine. "You mean you
thought I was going to turn out to be one of those flying saucer
weirdoes?"

"Something like that," she said dryly. "You meet a lot of them,
in my line of work."

"Mine too," he said, and refilled her glass. "Well, so what made
you change your mind?" His eyes were sparkling. His aura lit up
when he smiled, and she felt something flip-flop in her stomach.
Katlyn cupped a hand to cover her mouth, and tried not to giggle.
Fox just kept smiling, pinning her with his eyes. She felt a
little giddy.

After dinner, as they walked out into the night, she put her hand
through the crook of his arm.

<Poor guy,> she thought. <He has potential, he just doesn't know
it.> Feeling a surge of protectiveness, she tipped her head and
kissed him sweetly next to his ear.

Mulder smiled back at her. <Gullible,> he was thinking. <Too
easy. I could get her to believe anything, if I smiled when I
said it.> His eyes left the flame of her hair, focused far away,
and he sighed.

****************************

"Let me get this straight. That woman I saw you with last night
has a graduate degree in philosophy from Cornell, she's a part
time obstetrical assistant, part time midwife, and part time
*yoga* instructor, who works out seven days a week, goes hiking
on weekends, and looks like a model. Did I miss anything?"

"Yeah, she's been developing something of a reputation as a faith
healer, and she's reported to have an IQ almost as high as ..."
Mulder shrugged "well, yours, for example."

The door of the X-files office was cracked open, and as Scully
walked up to it she could hear Skinner's voice clearly. He was
saying, "My god, Mulder, are you out of your mind? A woman like
that on your arm, and -- "

Scully's hand froze mid-reach, two inches from the door.

"You think she's hot, huh? Well, I guess if you like redheads
..." Her partner sounded totally bored. Scully's mouth was
half-open, with 'morning, Mulder' lodged uncomfortably in her
throat. She should move, she should knock, she should announce
herself.

She should breathe.

"There's an immense difference between intelligence and depth,"
Mulder was saying. "Trust me to know what I like, okay."

Scully's breath went out suddenly, and she turned on her heel.
"Look, about this file --" Mulder's tone had changed, but his
voice still followed her as she retreated down the hall. "Don't
say anything to Scully about this, alright? But -- " She
clapped her hands over her ears, and walked faster.

Don't say anything to Scully about *what*? She had to keep
pushing the thought away. What file? Talking behind her back,
were they? Like a couple of good old boys? By the time she got
her hands around a cup of coffee, her temper was up, and she
marched right back down to Mulder's office. This time she
knocked and pushed the door open in one assertive motion,
refusing to overhear anything.

Maybe she pushed a little too hard. The door cracked hard
against the wall. Both men looked up in surprise, and she could
have sworn Skinner's scalp blushed. "Uh, good morning Agent
Scully," Skinner muttered. The conspirators, caught in the act.
"Good morning, sir." Skinner took one look at her, and exited
abruptly. She stepped out of his way, and closed the door behind
him.

"Hi," said Mulder, without smiling. Without even looking
terribly guilty. How did he do it?

She walked around to his side of the desk. "Hi yourself," she
said, very levelly. She could afford to wait. Mulder wasn't
actually all that good at keeping things from her, not once she
was on to him. Her eyes fell on the photos, spread out over his
desk. He was starting to gather them up.

"What's all this?" she asked, and fished one out from under his
hand. Grainy black and white, brick warehouse corner under a
streetlight ... looked like a blow-up from a surveillance camera.

"Uh, nothing much," Mulder said.

"Nothing much? Come on, Mulder, is this about that voodoo lead
you were working on?"

"Nope. No voodoo."

"Doesn't look like E.B.E. stuff. Right?"

"Right." His mouth quirked. She stared at him.

"Right, it isn't? Or right, it doesn't *look* like it?" she
asked, carefully.

"Yep."

"Mul-der?"

"Okay, it isn't. Hey, what makes you so curious, suddenly?"

She looked at him long and hard. "Look, Mulder, I know you're
working on an X-file."

"What makes you think that?" His face was perfectly neutral,
solemn. He might have looked innocent, if she hadn't known him
so well. She could see the hot glint behind his eyes.

"You just have that look," she said.

His eyes slid over her face, provoking, light dancing in them
somewhere deep inside. His phone started to ring. "I know how
your mind works, Mulder, you're still worrying at that ridiculous
Willowton case, aren't you?"

Mulder winked at her, and picked it up the phone. "Mulder."

Scully sighed, and perched against the edge of his desk, watching
him. He sat down, swiveled in his chair, tipped back and
sideways to reach into the drawer next to her knee. He bumped
her leg with his wrist, and she edged out of his way. "Yeah,
sure, I'll give you his number," he was saying. He was really in
his element, here, surrounded by all these things, these
pictures, and scraps, and leads. Whatever it looked like,
whatever form it took, everything here was a lead, or a potential
lead. A rabbit hole you might fall into. The stuff Mulder
accumulated was all stuff that took you somewhere -- else. Her
eyes scanned over his walls, remembering how credulous this had
all looked to her, once. Crackpot stuff, with no science behind
it, that's how it had seemed. It was weird to think about it
now, to try to remember how she used to think of science as a
dry, steady, stable sort of thing. Before she got to know
Mulder.

What was he up to? It could be anything, literally anything.
She felt a little rushing thrill, until the overheard
conversation crowded back at the edges of her mind and squelched
it. Mulder was tapping his pen, letting it slip down through his
fingers and bounce back up off the desk. She couldn't take her
eyes off his hand. That hand looked innocent, but she knew it
wasn't. There was an electrical uneasiness running through her,
centering in her stomach. Call it intuition.

"That was Hosteen's phone number," she said when he hung up.

"Yeah?"

"So who needs Albert Hosteen's number? Come on, Mulder, what's
the X-file?"

He studied her, curiously. "Scully," he said, slowly. His eyes
made her nervous. She pushed aside some papers so there was more
room to sit on his desk. Boosting herself up, she crossed her
legs and picked up one of the photos again.

"Vampires?" It was a wild guess, but she remembered him making a
remark about vampires last week.

"Yeah, how'd you know?" he said. "See Rachel there? And this is
a good one of Anthony." He started laying out grainy shots in
front of her, manically, one over the other.

"Wait, wait! What am I looking for? These all look like empty
streets."

"No, look right here, here's Joseph actually caught in the act.
The world's very first photographically recorded vampiric
exsanguination."

Scully scrutinized the grainy image. "Mulder, this is a homeless
person. Asleep. A sleeping homeless person."

"No, no, don't you get it? Vampires can't be seen in mirrors,
right? Well, the photosensitive layer of film is made up of
silver halide, very similar to the silvering on mirrors. So we
can deduce that vampires can't be seen on film. I mean, just
admit it, Scully, since you wouldn't be able to see them anyway,
how can you be sure they're not there?"

"You're pulling my leg."

"Yeah." He grasped her ankle, and gave it a firm tug. "I'm
pulling your leg."

Scully groaned. "Okay! Fine. Don't tell me. Tell me when
you're ready. I don't care. Tell me when you've gotten yourself
in too deep, and I have to come bail you out."

"Ah, come on, Scully. Don't be mad at me. It was just a joke."

"Unhand my foot, Mulder."

He slid his thumb over her Achilles heel one last time,
regretfully, and then let go.

SEATAC DOUBLETREE
11:11 p.m.

"Personal note:"

Dana Scully typed the words, and then sat looking at them. What
did she want to say? She felt sure that she wanted to express
something, if only to herself. Absently, she set her finger on
the backspace key, and watched it eat up the words. Unwrite the
words.

Until they were gone.

Electrical data, existing and persisting in a way that could be
transmitted, recorded, copied, and hacked. Impossible to
eradicate, if it should leave her hands. And yet it occurred to
her that she could, if she wanted, confess her heart in silvery
light, block text and delete, and no one would ever know. As if
it never existed. Unless some modern-day wizard like Frohike
called back the traces using arcane skills. Was that possible?
Nothing vanishes without a trace. She took off her glasses, and
rubbed her eyes.

Did she want it to be vanishable? Electrical? Untouchable?

She closed the laptop, and curled back onto the bed, hugging
herself. It crossed her mind to look for some real paper, but
she knew she didn't have any.

Anyway, what was the point? She didn't even know what she wanted
to say.

Outside her hotel window, the rain was streaming down. Torrents
of Seattle rain. She had the balcony door cracked open, and she
could just hear it, very dimly -- just the endless, soft,
whitenoise rush of it. And she could smell the rain, wafting up
from the wet pavement below. But she didn't feel part of it,
didn't feel connected to anything at all. The balcony was
sheltered under a wide eave. If she went outside, leaned over
the rail, stretched her arms out as long as she could reach, she
knew she wouldn't touch a raindrop.

Scully felt edgy without understanding why. Uneasy as if
something inside her were being decided at a level too deep for
her consent. She felt the way she remembered feeling in the
weeks right before she'd made the decision to join the FBI
instead of practicing medicine. The way she'd felt when she
first met Mulder.

They were flying back to Washington tomorrow.

It had been more than a week since Mulder hadn't been talking,
and she still didn't know what the X-file was. Their work had
been routine. Mind-numbingly routine, in fact. Going down in a
sea of paperwork, documentation, filling in forms. The sort of
stuff no one actually gave a damn about, but everyone depended
on. Evidence, covering your ass, proof that you were working.
Necessary. Necessary. Why did she feel like there was an itch
under her skin? She kicked her feet off the bed, and moved
restlessly to stand in front of the window. They'd wrapped up
this case pretty well today. Nothing earthshaking. No lives
changed, maybe. But competently completed, with all the right
signatures in all the right places. And that should be enough.
There'd been a time when that would have been enough.

She just couldn't get it out of her head, that Mulder was hiding
something.

Not that he was acting especially weird, for Mulder. As usual,
he was flawlessly polite, friendly, even joking -- except for the
days he spent brooding. But he'd repeatedly denied the existence
of any new X-file, and after that day in his office she'd counted
three other times that he and Skinner stopped talking suddenly
when she walked up.

And there was something else. Something she couldn't put her
finger on. Something about the feeling she got when she looked
at him. Like there was more than he wanted her to see.

"Scully?"

Hearing his muffled voice, she jumped as badly as if he'd snuck
up from behind and poked her in the ribs. He was knocking softly
at the door that joined their rooms.

"You asleep?"

She sighed, opened the door, and went back to sit cross-legged on
the bed.

"I just wanted to tell you good night," he said, hovering there
uncertainly. Blue light from the muted television in his room
flickered behind him. His face was in shadow.

"Goodnight, Mulder."

"What're you doing? Were you sleeping?"

"No."

"Good." He came over and sat next to her on the bed. "Look,
Scully, I know your flight's really early in the morning, and I
just thought --"

"*My* flight?"

"Yeah. I thought you might be gone before I woke up, so ..."

"You're not flying back with me?"

"Uh ..."

He was squirming. She rolled, reaching for the bedside lamp.
Sat up again. "Okay, Mulder, I want to know what's going on."

He squinted miserably in the light. "What do you mean? I'm just
taking a couple days off, that's all."

"Days off? Mulder, does this have anything to do with Albert
Hosteen?"

"Hosteen?" He looked genuinely confused.

"The X-file, how does it involve Hosteen?"

"Scully, I keep telling you, there's no X-file." He ground the
heels of his hands against his eyes. "I wish there were. I
haven't talked to Albert Hosteen for -- Oh. " His hands dropped.
"The photography."

She waited. Silent. Watching him. Why did he look like he was
trying not to laugh?

"Scully, Skinner has a friend who's an amateur photographer.
Those shots you saw were part of his portfolio. There's some big
competition coming up, and he thought Skinner might be able to
turn him on to something unusual -- crime scene stuff, something
like that. But then they got talking, and Skinner happened to
mention Hosteen, and ... Scully, that guy's flying to New Mexico
to take pictures, that's all."

"But those were shots from a surveillance camera ..."

"They were *art photos,* Scully." He looked her right in the
eye, and she realized he was telling the truth.

But not all of it.

Feeling a little sick, she turned her face away and then got up,
got away from him. Went back to the window. "Mulder," she said
slowly, "you really want me to believe you're taking a vacation?
*You*? Time off?" She looked down on the dismal rain. "In
Seattle? Now?" Turning back, she faced him again. "Without
telling me?"

He looked so unhappy, she almost felt sorry for him. But not
quite. "Scully, please, just let me do this ... I've got to
..." He moved his hands, helplessly. "Just don't ask me
anything right now, okay?"

There was a long, long silence.

"Some of the things we've investigated together I've had a hard
time believing. I admit it. And there've been times I was
wrong. But Mulder, I've always believed *you*."

He wasn't looking at her.

"You know that, right?"

"Yeah, I *know*, Scully, I know. It means a lot to me." He
looked up at her then, and his eyes pleaded, and she almost fell
for it. She was almost going to say something else, almost going
to just go with it ... and then Mulder put his foot in his mouth
again. "You'll take back the rental car, right?" he said.

She glared at him. "Fine," she answered, tightly.

After he slunk pathetically back to his room, avoiding her eyes,
she sat awake for hours with her head spinning. She felt sick.
She told herself that it was just night jitters -- that when the
sun came up, everything would make sense again. She often told
herself that, and rarely found it to be the case. Not when
Mulder was around.

At three o'clock in the morning, feeling like an idiot, she
emailed Skinner a request for personal leave, and called the
airline to cancel her flight.

****************************

1:31 p. Scully glanced at the clock on the dash, and then got her
eyes back to the road. It was still raining. Relentless rain,
and heavy traffic. She'd been driving for less than two hours,
but it felt like longer. After a late start, and one quick stop
at a supermarket, Mulder was setting a pace that was hard to
follow. If her focus slipped, she'd lose him.

Scully had been up and packed by the crack of dawn, and even so,
with her ear pressed to the connecting door, listening to the
silence in Mulder's room, she'd been afraid for a while he'd
gotten past her. But Mulder, so far as she could tell, had slept
peacefully until almost noon. When she heard the first sounds of
his stumbling around, starting the shower, she let herself out
very quietly and hurried down to the hotel gift shop. Worrying
every second that he might be walking out the door behind her
back, she bought a Mariner's cap to stuff over her hair, and a
neon pink sweatshirt with, "Seattle Rain Festival, August 25-10"
printed on it in puffy silver metallic. She cringed as she
pulled it on. Pink wasn't her color.

After that, she went out and sat in the rental car. Hunched and
cold, turning on the air vents periodically when the windows
started to steam, she had a lot of time to contemplate how really
stupid she felt -- and how much worse she was going to feel if he
caught her. *When* he caught her. She grimaced. The main thing
was to not be caught before she learned something. And to be
there if he needed her.

That was always the main thing.

A speeding semi brought back her concentration with a snap, by
splashing her blind and cutting her off. She swore quietly,
slowing and shifting lanes, and looking for Mulder. There he
was. She hadn't lost him.

They had just passed through Olympia, and he still hadn't broken
pace.

Then he turned off of I-5, and the traffic was less. Scully was
tired, and in danger of being hypnotized by the road, the rain,
the ceaseless specter of Mulder's blue rental car receding before
her in a wash of spray, between gloomy firs.

To make matters worse, she'd had the dream again last night. She
couldn't shake the feeling of it. It was the really awful one,
the dream where she woke up with her heart racing, knowing Mulder
was right outside the door. Sometimes she could hear his voice
calling her. Sometimes he was crying. And she kept waking up,
over and over again, and leaping for the door, but every time she
opened it, empty wind rushed at her face and through her hair,
and Mulder wasn't there, just another door. And another. And
another. And she always got up in the morning feeling that she
hadn't slept at all.

What if he was telling the truth? What if he just wanted a
couple of days away from everything, away from her, away from
having to explain anything to anybody *including* her? It was
the question that had plagued her from the moment she'd
determined to follow him, sometime in the deepest silence after
midnight. To assuage her conscience, she'd promised herself
she'd turn back at the first sign that he might be planning to do
something fun, anything fun. But the longer they drove, the less
likely that seemed. Mulder wouldn't drive three hours out into
rainy nowhere like this without good reason.

2:58 They were in Aberdeen, and the rain had slowed to a
drizzle. In Hoquiam, Mulder turned North up 101, into the deeper
woods. The roads were more narrow, and the outposts and signs of
habitation stretched fewer and farther between. There was hardly
any traffic. It was really starting to get to her, this drive.
The longer it went on like this, the more surreal everything
became. An hour later, after Humptulips, they passed into
National Forest land. And after that, onto the Quinault Indian
Reservation. The road wound and dipped and crested, and their
speed had slowed. Like trying to run in a nightmare. Sky was
only a narrow gloomy strip above the tall trees. It began to
impinge on Scully's consciousness that, without having noticed
the moment when it began to happen, somehow they had slipped over
the edge. Were slipping further all the time. Away from other
people. Away from civilization. Away from everything.

She struggled with a feeling of rising hysteria, as if she wanted
to honk, flash her lights, make him stop -- make him wait for
her. She ached for him to explain to her where they were, and
where they were going. There was something increasingly
claustrophobic about these endless, unoccupied woods, and the
louring clouds.

And the eerie feeling she'd been holding in check for weeks rose
up in her like a delirium, and she saw herself in her mind's eye
chasing endlessly, hopelessly after Mulder, through landscapes
various and fantastical as in a dream, a nightmare, where he was
always just beyond her reach, and she was forever pleading with
him to slow down, to help her understand, help her believe, but
he couldn't slow down because he was already too far ahead, and
always had been.

Grimly she held on to the wheel, and determined to keep him in
sight. By now he must have noticed her car. Worse than being
found out, she had begun to dread the thought of being left
behind -- this far out. Having come so far.

****************************

5:23 Mulder pulled off the narrow road, into a parking area
marked with a sign that said Windhaven Lodge. The cluster of
rustic log buildings were almost the only structures they'd seen
since leaving Aberdeen/Hoquiam. Or anyway, at least since
Humptulips. Scully knew she should drive on past and then find a
place to turn around, but she just couldn't do it. More afraid
of losing him than of being seen, she slowed down too, and pulled
in.

She watched as Mulder got out of his car, and walked into the
resort office. He didn't look over his shoulder, or glance her
way at all. Was it remotely possible that he didn't know he'd
been followed? She didn't see how. The area was too isolated.

A few minutes later, he exited the office, picked up his bag out
of the car, and walked off in the direction of the cabins. He
looked comfortable, maybe a little preoccupied. But he didn't
look at her. Feeling stunned, Scully sat for a while, trying to
decide what to do.

And the thought was back, the horrible *what if*. What if he'd
been telling her the truth, and she'd followed him all this way
only to intrude into his private space, where she obviously
wasn't wanted?

Finally it was shame that got her out of the car. Shame, and the
need to face up to things. Her body as she stood up felt like a
rubber puppet that belonged to someone else, and her head seemed
to float disconnected. Damn Mulder anyway for driving five and a
half hours straight shot, in the rain. But of course, *he'd* had
a good night's sleep before they started. At least it wasn't
raining anymore. In fact, the sky overhead was now almost
completely clear, in a ice-watery sort of way. Clammy wind
clapped her face, carrying with it the smell of salt, as if they
might be near the sea. Pulling herself together, she held her
head up, made her face impassive, and walked into the office.

"Good afternoon. Can I help you?"

"Yes, uh... Good afternoon." As an automatic habit, she found
herself glancing around discretely. Taking in her surroundings,
noting the exit doors, and checking for anything potentially
useful, like a public guestbook. "I'd like to ask about a room."

"Do you have a reservation?"

"Well... Actually..."

"I'm very sorry, but I'm afraid it's just not possible without a
reservation. We always book at least three months out, even at
this time of year. A year in advance, for summer."

"A year?" Scully repeated, dumbly.

The woman smiled. She had kind eyes. "Are you tired, dear?
It's a long drive up here, I know. But don't worry. There's a
little hotel in Forks, just about thirty-five miles up the road.
You can be there in an hour. If you'd like, I can call for
you..."

At that moment, arms wrapped themselves around Scully's waist and
cuddled her. Startled, by reflex she relaxed. Though the touch
was unexpected, the scent and the presence were inarguably
Mulder. "Hey, sweetheart, *there* you are," his voice was husky
in her ear. "I've been looking all over for you." Was he
nuzzling her hair? "I already registered," he said. And kissed
her ear.

New reflex -- she spun around and punched him, not very hard, on
the shoulder.

His eyes were laughing at her. "You hungry?" he said. "I'm
hungry. Let's get something to eat." Gripping her arm tightly,
he walked her out of the office. She had to skip to keep up.

"Mulder, let go of me! What the hell do you think you're doing?"

He transferred his hand to the opposite shoulder, pulling her
snugly under his arm, and brushed his lips against her ear again.
"Scully, you're on *my* time, now, remember?"

She stopped struggling. Her heart was beating fast. She opened
her mouth to say something, but nothing came out.

And then they stepped through into the restaurant, and in front
of them was a long wall of windows with almost nothing outside
but ocean. She saw that they were on a high bluff, beyond which
the land just dropped away. It was a feeling like flying.

****************************

Scully seized a few minutes in the women's room to try to regain
her composure. She shoved the Mariner's cap in the back pocket
of her jeans, and stripped out of the hated pink sweatshirt. She
sniffed doubtfully at the armpits of the black knit top she'd had
on underneath. Sprayed eau de parfum in the air and leaned into
the mist. What was she doing, she asked herself grumpily. She
was asserting her dignity, that's what. Lipstick. A quick comb
through her hair. It would have to do. Wrinkling her lip and
wishing she could just walk away from it, she tucked the folded
pink sweatshirt defiantly under her arm, stuck out her chin, and
went out to face Mulder.

He was at a table by the window, sitting with his chin resting on
his clasped hands, staring out at the sea. There was a martini
in front of him, and another waiting for her.

She sat down and stared at the martini. Stared at him. He
looked perfectly at ease. In fact, more than at ease, Mulder
looked like he was enjoying himself.

"What the hell are you up to, Mulder?" The words just blurted
out, and she wished she could bite them back.

"That's my line, don't you think?" The bastard was laughing at
her. Without changing expression, or making a sound, he was
laughing.

"This really isn't an X-file, is it?"

"Well, I don't know. I didn't think so when I got up this
morning. But now you're here, so it's possible I was wrong."

She squinted at him, trying to read his eyes.

He lifted his glass. "To asking the right question," he said,
and waited for her to drink.

Scully barely let the alcohol touch her lips. It stung.
Delicious, distracting smells were drifting out from the nearby
kitchen. When had she last eaten? She was limp with fatigue
from the long drive, the long night, and the effort of keeping up
with Mulder.

She took a deep breath. "Mulder, I ..." Then she lost her
nerve. "I can't drink this. I can't drink it, I'm exhausted."
She pushed the martini away. "I've got another hour to drive
tonight, and if I drink that, I'll fall on my face."

"Scully --" He shook his head slightly, looking dazed. "What
are you talking about? You're not driving anywhere. You're
staying with me."

"I can't do that! I'm not staying here, Mulder. You didn't
invite me. I'm way out of line, I admit it. There's no excuse.
I shouldn't even be here. I just thought ... I thought you might
need me. I thought whatever it is you don't want to talk about
might be dangerous, that's all. I --"

"Scully, listen to me," he cut her off. "You're invited. Don't
you know that? You're always invited. Now, do me a favor, okay?
You don't have to drink all of it, but at least take a couple
sips. We are sitting here, we're together. Everything's fine.
The view is great. There's no place you need to go right now,
and no decisions to make. Just breathe, okay? Do you want some
coffee? I'll get you some coffee."

Blinking hard, she nodded. And raised her glass. Took a deep
swallow that burned her throat. Another. Set the glass down.
Turned her face to look out the window, glumly. It was
beautiful. The restaurant overlooked a sheltered cove, and a
driftwood beach. The sea was wild, grey, primal. The sun was
sinking above the water, and the light was growing long. Someone
who smelled like coffee paused beside their table, and Mulder put
a warm cup into her hands. Gratefully, she drank.

A waiter set a plate of steaming calamari on the table between
them. For a few minutes they didn't talk, just ate calamari
together in silence. Mulder finished his martini, and silently
reached for hers.

"You want to order now?" he asked.

"Yeah," she said softly. "Look, Mulder. I'm sorry. But I
really have to know what we're doing here. I mean, I can't just
sit here with you, not knowing. I have no right to ask, I
realize that. Not after what I did, but -- "

Mulder twirled the stem of his glass, not looking at her. "It
breaks my heart to hear you say that. What do you mean, no right
to ask?"

"Mulder, goddammit, why aren't you mad?"

"*Mad?* If I understood you correctly, you followed me all the
way out here to the ends of nowhere because you were worried
about my safety. Isn't that right? Do you realize that you are
the only person in my life who would do something like that for
me? No one else cares enough, Scully. No one ever did.
Everyone else lets go -- sooner or later, they let go -- they
just throw up their hands, and say to themselves, 'crazy Mulder,
spooky Mulder, let him go, let's see what he comes back with this
time.' But not you. You don't let go, Scully."

She was speechless.

"That's what gives you the right," he finished.

She let out her breath and nodded, very slightly. He hunched his
shoulders a little.

"Okay, the truth. The truth is ... it's just what I said. I
know it sounds stupid, but I just needed a break. I needed a
change. I thought I wanted to be alone, but now you're here, and
that's even better. In fact, it's great." He lifted his empty
martini glass, and raised two fingers at a passing waiter.

"Mulder," she protested, "I --"

"You're drinking," he told her, firmly. "Tonight we're both
drinking."

"Since when do you drink martinis?"

"Since just now." He smiled a dangerous smile. "Since I decided
we should both be drunk."

It was a dare.

Dumbfounded, Scully stared at him. "But this isn't like you,"
she protested, gesturing vaguely at everything -- the restaurant,
the martini, and the sea outside. All the hours and miles of
deep forest. "None of it. This is a nice place, Mulder. How
did *you* ever find a place like this?"

"Ouch." He looked into his drink. "Actually, I remember coming
here with ... my family, when I was a kid."

"Oh."

He sighed. "Look, I was talking to someone who goes hiking every
weekend, and it reminded me ... You know, sometimes I get so
lost in the X-files I almost forget to breathe. I just wanted to
go somewhere really, really far away from Washington -- As far
as I could get. I wanted a change. Don't you ever feel like
you're caught in rut, a repeating loop, and you have to get out?
Scully?"

Her eyebrows raised. "Working with *you,* Mulder? Not exactly,
no." Another martini appeared in front of her, and she picked it
up absently. "You told Skinner not to tell me about some file,
and ever since then you've both been acting jumpy."

"Huh?" His face was blank. "Look, Scully, I don't know what you
heard --"

"Nothing. Never mind. Forget it."

"I'm not avoiding the question, I just don't know what you're
talking about. All I said to Skinner was that whenever this case
finished, I wanted a couple of days off."

"This place has a three month waiting list."

"I lucked out. They had a cancellation."

They looked each other right in the eye, a contest of wills. An
approaching waiter checked himself midstep, and backed away.

"Okay, it's my turn," Mulder said. "I presume you put in for
leave?"

"Yes."

"Good. Give me your cell phone."

"What?"

He held out his hand. "Your cell phone. Give it to me. Come on,
Scully. Car keys, too, while you're at it."

"Why?"

"Can't you let me get away with *anything*?"

"No." But she reached for her purse, and started to open it.

He reached out a long arm, and plucked the whole purse out of her
hand. "Thank you," he said dryly, pushing back his chair.
Scully put down the untasted martini, and flagged down another
cup of coffee. This wasn't the first time she'd gone with
Mulder, alone into the wilds. In fact, they'd traveled together
to places much further out. But X-files were familiar territory,
compared to this.

Where the devil had he gone off to with her stuff, anyway? And
what did he want with her cell phone?

Her fingers tightened, gripping her cup. Mulder'd ditched her
before, more times than she liked to think about. But if he were
trying to leave her behind, why would he order drinks and take
her purse? Anyway, this wasn't an X-file.

Her coffee cup was almost empty again by the time he came back.
He walked across the room toward her with an easy stride,
smiling. She noticed one of the other diners giving him the eye
as he passed. He was handsome. Dressed in jeans and his black
sweater, Mulder looked completely comfortable and completely
himself. His private face. Scully felt flushed, like she might
be blushing.

"Damn you anyway, Mulder," she muttered as he sat down.

He cocked his head curiously, and a word died unspoken on his
lips. "Listen," he said, after a half beat, "I put your bag in
the room. We're officially on vacation, and incommunicado. Both
cell phones and the laptop are locked in the trunk of my car,
where they will stay until we check out. I'm not even carrying
my gun. Now, will you relax?"

"I still have mine."

"Well, good. Then you can still shoot me if I get too far out of
line." He lifted his drink, and looked at it. Then at her.
"Privacy," he said intensely, holding up his glass.

"Huh?"

"My new favorite word. Don't you get it, Dana? No one in the
whole world knows where we are. We're alone. We escaped!" He
grinned a goofy, infectious grin. "They're not watching us!
Even Cancerman couldn't find us here. I was careful when I made
the reservations. We're registered under 'Hale', same as my
rental car --"

"*We're* registered?"

"-- No one followed us, or we would have seen them --"

Scully narrowed her eyes.

"What?" His voice faltered.

"You knew I was following you."

"Well, yeah. Scully, there wasn't that much traffic."

"You *let* me follow you all the way out here, you creep."

"I was *glad* you were following me. I'm glad you're here."

She considered. "Cancerman could find us if he wanted to," she
said.

Mulder shrugged. "Why would he want to? There's no X-file.
We're not doing anything that'd interest him."

Scully was still feeling warm. A tingling pressure had started
in her stomach, her solar plexus. Her heart. She took a couple
deep breaths. "Okay, Mulder," she said very softly. "Okay."
And she picked up her martini.

He rested his hand on hers. "Look," he whispered.

Outside, the sun was getting ready to set. Goldness and crimson,
Promethean and wild above a slate blue sea. Streaking wisps
of clouds picked up the fiery light and tossed it pinkly through
the sky, cloud to cloud, for the sheer joy of it. And the weird
light was strewn over everything. And as the waves reached
desperate for the sky, cresting and jostling, their tips broke
rosy gold. On the beach of the little cove below, a couple arm
in arm kissed each other as they walked. As if no one could see
them.

Scully sipped her martini, and then tossed the last of it back.
She raised her hand to signal the waiter. Mulder smiled.

"Can we order, now?" he said after a while. "Please?"

She chose salmon. Mulder asked for a prime rib, and a carafe of
white Zinfandel.

"Mulder, honestly, what do you think you're doing? You really
are trying to get me drunk, aren't you?"

"No, of course not. I'm *planning* to get you drunk."

"Well, watch out. I'm a lightweight -- "

"I like the sound of that."

"-- especially tonight."

He smiled a slow smile. She did her best to ignore it.

****************************

Candlelight on his face. Two day beard. His eyes now in shadow,
now luminant. Face long. Expressionless or sad, except the
eyes. Every now and then the corner of his mouth moved, as if to
smile. As if a smile couldn't go deep enough. A yearning sort
of look.

He was drunk.

She realized that, as she leaned across the table toward him.
Hunching over the table, almost hugging it. He was doing the
same.

"So did you, or didn't you?" he wanted to know.

"Well, what do you think?"

"I'd like to think you did."

She almost laughed, just half a laugh.

"Come on, tell me. Did you *like* it?" His voice pitched
suggestively low.

She shrugged. "Yeah, sure. It was fun. That was a long time
ago, Mulder."

"Tell me what it *felt* like. God, Scully, I'd love to see you
like that! To see you *open* like that. What did you do? Did
he touch you?" He reached out his hand, brushing his fingertips
along the inside of her arm as he spoke. "Was it the most
sensual thing in the world? Could you feel it with your whole
body?" His fingers on her skin felt warm, exciting her nerve
endings and sending a sensation like electricity through her,
like someone switched on a light. Like she was lit and glowing
inside, and higher than she'd thought. She gazed at him,
hypnotized. "That's the part I like best," he was saying. "Did
you listen to music? Did you look at candles?" Still watching
her, he nodded slightly towards the candle between them. "Look,"
he whispered.

And she did. And to her surprise, she saw that the tiny jiggling
flame was alive. Much more significant and beautiful than she
remembered knowing. Not just the glow of the thing, or the way
the candlelight spilled tipsily side to side inside the glass,
like a fishbowl on a tossing boat, but the way the energy of the
flame seemed to stretch right out through the air, dispersing and
growing tenuous, yet nonetheless tangible like a feathery touch,
meeting and matching the glow she could feel inside her own solar
plexus. As if she and the light were made of the same stuff.
And the energy that wrapped her and the candle enfolded Mulder as
well. His hand was still on her wrist.

Warily she looked at him, and pulled her arm gently away. "No,
no candles," she said. "Definitely no candles. Mostly I just
remember raiding the kitchen."

He snorted. "What did you eat?"

"Cornflakes and whipped cream. Best cornflakes and whipped cream
I ever tasted, if you really have to know."

"The kind from a can?"

"Yeah."

"Did you spray it right into your mouth?"

"Yep."

"I'm sorry I missed it."

"I'm sure you are. Okay, it's your turn, or do I even want to
know?"

He shrugged lazily. "Psych majors have all sorts of ...
interesting opportunities," he said, and she thought a shadow
crossed his face. What was he saying? Psychotropic drugs,
experimental research? She was afraid to ask. "But I never did
it just to party," he went on. "In fact, I was usually alone. I
thought it might be a door ..." He shook his head. "Anyway, I
mostly stopped doing that stuff after ... it got too scary."

Watching him, a chill went through her. After *what* got too
scary? After E-H, when he'd hallucinated military men melting
and mutating into aliens in front of his eyes?

What would it be like to be Mulder? To be inside Mulder's eyes,
looking out? She imagined sometimes that she could see something
inside his eyes she might fall for. Something that tugged at her
heart, threatened to own her in a way so deep it scared her.
Either that, or the thing in his eyes was something injured.
Maybe broken. Something like a gaping wound.

This was it, the feeling she dreaded most. This sinking
foreboding feeling that if she opened herself too much to
Mulder's extreme possibilities, she might lose herself behind his
eyes. Terrifying thought. What if she got lost inside Mulder's
head, and couldn't get back out? Ever.

"Mulder, you're crazy."

He looked like she'd slapped him. "That's what they tell me."

"Well, they're right," she said lightly. On a sudden impulse,
she slipped off one shoe and ran her instep up the inside of his
right leg. She didn't blink.

His eyes got wider, glanced over her face. He swallowed. She
could feel the energy change around him. She could always feel
it. As if, stepping too close to him, or even just hearing his
voice, his emotions slipped into her head, slid over her skin.
She got confused sometimes, where Mulder stopped and she started.
She dropped her foot.

"God -- Mulder -- I don't understand anything. What are we
*doing* here? And anyway, I thought you were bored being with
me."

"*Bored?*" He covered her hand with his own, and searched her
eyes. His tone was very serious. "With *you*? Scully, you're
the
most interesting person I know." They both blinked. "Well, you
know what I mean."

"I'm going to try to take that as a compliment, Mulder."

His mouth quirked. Very gently he said, "It *is* a compliment.
Don't you realize that I'm always alone, except when I'm with
you? You're the only person who takes me seriously. With
everyone else, it's like I'm half invisible. Like I could talk
for hours and bare my soul, and even if they listened they'd
never be able to hear. Words are only words, Scully. All anyone
else can hear is the words, and they're incapable of believing
half of those. It's like ... it's like they're all on the other
side of glass. Everyone. Except you. Shit, with you I'm not
even alone when I'm alone. You get inside my head." He was
looking at her with wonder in his eyes. "*You follow me.*"

"I'm s--"

He laid his fingers across her lips. "I love it that you follow
me. Don't ever stop following me, I think I'd die."

His touch on her lips was seductive. His face radiant, as he
leaned above the candle. Scully wasn't drunk at all, so long as
all she did was look into his eyes. The room around them, the
whole world, was all sunk in shadows and disappeared, and all of
reality had contracted down this. To this flickering island of
candlelight, with Mulder in it. She could feel herself leaning
closer, her mouth relaxing, could feel the wide-eyed
vulnerability he must surely be seeing in her face. Nothing was
real except his eyes. The texture of his skin. And the pressure
in her bladder.

"Mulder, I have to pee."

"Okay." He didn't move. Didn't blink.

The room lurched crazily when she stood up. Tables and steps and
hallways maneuvered themselves obligingly around her, but with a
rushing, seasick inclination to tip. Things were moving kind of
fast, and everything seemed yellow, glowlit. In the welcome
little toilet stall there was a tiny high window, and into it
streamed the darkness, the smell of ocean air. *What am I doing,
what am I doing,* she thought. And behind it, even quieter,
wordless, a warmth: *Mulder's here.* She felt more out of
control, and more safe, than she ever remembered feeling in her
life.

Her face in the mirror looked haunted to her, childish, and
overwhelmed by huge eyes. Stupid face, she would have made faces
at it, but it didn't seem to belong to her. The eyes just kept
staring back trustingly, like a deer in the headlights. Child
face in the mirror, the face she'd always worked so hard to leave
behind. <And now I've got that feeling once again,> she heard
herself thinking. <I can't explain, you would not understand.>
What the hell? Scully froze, and concentrated very hard. When
she stopped to pay attention, she could hear a piano playing,
very quietly, piped in. <When I was a child, I caught a fleeting
glimpse,> she thought, and pointed herself back towards Mulder.
<Out of the corner of my eye. I turned to look but it was gone,
I cannot put my finger on it now -->

"Pink Floyd muzak," Mulder said as she walked up. He was
lowering her folded pink sweatshirt from his face. "Kinda weird,
huh?"

"**Yeah.**"

He drained the last of the wine from his glass. "Let's get out
of here." He stood up, shoved the sweatshirt into her hands, and
put his arm across her shoulders. "You're gonna need that," he
said.

The other tables were all empty as they walked toward the door.
All the other diners had left. It was the scruffy end of the
evening, just a couple of busboys, cleaning up. "God, it's late.
What time is it?"

Mulder glanced at his watchless wrist. "Not a clue."

"11:21," the maitre de offered, holding the door. "Have a nice
night."

Outside, there was a quietness like dreaming. The smell of
brine, tree bark, and stars. Scully tipped her head up, and
Mulder caught her, kept her balance for her. The breeze chilled
her skin, and the stars between the scudding clouds looked cold,
impossible.

"Which one do they come from, Mulder? Could they take us there?"
Her teeth were chattering, but she barely noticed.

"Sshh. I don't know. Here." He was trying to suffocate her
with her own sweatshirt, and she was struggling, but not very
much.

"They *can't*, Mulder," she said with her head in the shirt.
"They can't take us there, because it just isn't possible,
because ..." But it was really very difficult to explain
anything coherent about Einstein when Mulder had her all tangled
up in this damn pink thing, and she could barely breathe.

"Stand still," he whispered.

"Umph," she said, and gave up. It occurred to her to hold her
arms out obediently, like she did when she was a very little
girl, and let him dress her. Yeah, that made things easier.

"Better?" He stooped a little, tugging the waistband down around
her waist.

She looked up into his face, barely lit in the shadowy darkness,
and nodded, dumbly.

"Come on."

Her hand was in his hand, and he led her away into the dark.
Away from the restaurant. Past the line of cabins that lined the
bluff, to the top of wooden stairs that went down into the
darkness. Mulder pulled a small flashlight out of his pocket,
and shone it on the steps.

Wordlessly, she went with him. Down and down, with only one
rail, and the wind in their faces. The sound of the surf grew
stronger. Near the bottom, the stairs stopped, and they had to
scramble down the last bit over sand and rock. And then they
stood on the beach itself.

"Mulder," she breathed, softly. "My God."

It was so dark, she couldn't see the ocean. She knew it was
near, could hear the breaking force of it, but all the world
around was dusky and lost. Tipping her head up again, she could
just make out the glow of the lodge, above the bluff. "Come on,"
he said again, more urgently, and pulled her away from it, down
the unseen beach.

"Where are we going?"

"Does it matter?"

"No."

He let go of her hand, and pulled her close again under his arm,
so that she could feel the heat of his body. She wrapped her arm
around his waist. His waist was almost shoulder height for her,
so she held him tightly and didn't let her arm slip too low.
Instinctively, they moved closer to the waves, to the place where
the sand was damp, and harder packed. The flashlight spotlit
only the sand at their feet, and nothing else in the world was
visible.

"Look."

When Mulder turned off the light suddenly, Scully felt like she
was stepping off a cliff into darkness, and almost missed her
step. Then, beside them, a weird form of driftwood shone
suddenly brilliant, clawing desiccated fingers at the dark, and
then gone again as if dematerialized when Mulder shifted the
light. Next, a curl of wave, breaking towards them.
Overwhelming force and power of it, with nothing held back.
Grey, and surreal, and potent, and unexpecting.

"Stop it."

"And there." Weird trees above them, clawing back away from the
sea winds like tormented souls, frozen in the act of escape. "We
could be alone in the world," he murmured, and turned the light
off.

They paused. It was so still, Scully imagined that she could
hear her heart, but knew it was only the sound of the ocean.
Waves, and wind.

Then Mulder directed the light straight up. It was lost in clear
air, between the stars. "Are they there, Scully? Are they
watching us?" He raised up his arms and shouted, "Come get us, I
dare you!"

"Don't! Mulder, don't." She pulled at his arm.

"They can't hear." He turned his face down towards her, but it
was so dark she couldn't see it. "We're really alone, Dana. No
one can hear us. No one can see us. God, I have dreams like
this." He leaned closer, and for one heartstopping moment she
thought he was going to kiss her. He brushed his cheek against
hers, his lips against her ear. "Come on," he said, urgently,
and half dragged her, almost jogging, down the beach.

They went on and on, farther and farther into the darkness.
Stopped, and spun. "We could be alone! We could be the first
people on earth," he said, rapturously. The sound of his voice
made her breathless, and the familiar way he touched her. He was
as drunk as she was, maybe drunker.

"Look," he said. "Look, and tell me what you see."

She looked. She turned to every direction of the compass, and
looked. He stood away from her, with the flash switched off,
waiting. There was no light anywhere, except in the sky.

"It's three quarters dark, Mulder. Three quarters of the world
is completely dark."

"Yeah," he breathed out. "Yeah, thank you. You see it too.
It's only the stars are really real. Do you understand, Scully?
Do you?"

"Three quarters of everything is dark," she repeated slowly,
looking around. Wondering how he'd known. The forested bluff,
the beach, the sea. All featureless. Reflecting no light. No
sign that Humans had ever existed in the world. Military brat
that she was, Scully had rarely been so far out, never noticed
such
darkness. "I'm not sure I like it, Mulder," she said, and
instantly his arm was around her again.

"Let's sit," he said. "We'll look at the stars." A snag lit up
in the darkness, and then faded out. They went to sit against
it, and he settled her under his arm, against his chest.

"Mulder, seriously, have you gone crazy? I've never seen you
like this."

"What, invisible?"

She knew he was leaning close to her, but his face was only
darkness against darkness. "Well, for one thing, I've never seen
you this drunk ..."

"Drunk! God yes, I'm drunk. Aren't you?" He kissed her
awkwardly on the side of the nose. "There's Orion."

"Huh?"

"The mighty hunter, sinking down into the sea. You know the
nebula, right? It's in the middle of his sword," he pointed.
"And then, see the bright one? In line with the belt? Closer to
the horizon? That's Sirius. One of our closest neighbors."

She shivered. "It looks blue."

"It does tonight." His voice sounded eager, not the way she felt
at all. His fingers were in her hair, messing around absently.

She pushed at him, lifting her head a little. "Seriously,
Mulder, are you like this often? Why haven't I ever seen you
like this?"

She could feel him shrug. "I was getting around to it. Scully,
have you read 'The Awakening'? Kate Chopin?"

"I don't think so ..."

"At the beginning, she's afraid to swim, she's gotta keep her
feet on solid ground, you know? And she just does everything
that's expected of her, all the time -- she's respectable, and
sensible -- until one day she's seduced, and she has this affair,
and she finds out she likes it. And then something changes in
her, and she starts letting go, and she starts drifting, farther
and farther away from everyone, until no one knows how to
understand her anymore. No one even knows how to ask the right
questions. And at the end she's swimming, she just swims out
into the sea, and out, farther and farther, and never comes
back..."

When his voice stopped, the words hung suspended between them.

"That's horrible," Scully said finally.

"No! No. Not at all. You're missing the point. I must have
explained it wrong." They were quiet for while, looking at the
stars. The clouds were thickening, rolling in over the water
from the South.

"What's the right question, Mulder?" she whispered, almost hoping
he wouldn't hear. He didn't answer right away so she relaxed,
her head resting easier on his shoulder.

"The right question? About what? About why I didn't tell you?"

She nodded, letting her cheek rub against his sweater.

"I guess the right question is, what did I need time to think
about."

"Oh."

Silence again. The southern sky was darker now. "'They devour
the stars only in apparition,'" Mulder murmured, looking up at
the clouds. He kissed the top of her head.

"What did you need time to think about, Mulder."

"You, of course. I needed time to think about you. But I like
this better." Suddenly he scrambled up, pulling her to her feet.
"Let's swim, Scully. I want to swim."

"*What?* You're out of your mind, it's freezing!"

"I don't care." He started pulling his sweater over his head.
"Are you coming, or not?" he demanded, muffled.

"I'm *not*! Fox, stop it!"

"Fox," he repeated quizzically, popping his head free, and barely
breathing the sound. He was stopped for a second, bare chested,
with his sweater and T-shirt still bunched up around his arms.
Then he pulled them off in a wad, and tossed them in the
direction of the driftwood snag. Grabbing her, he kissed her on
the forehead. She couldn't see him at all, could barely make out
the shape of him against the sky, but she had the feeling he was
smiling. "Last chance," he said. "I'm not asking again."

"You're gonna freeze your butt off." He'd already kicked off his
shoes, and was stripping off his jeans as he spoke. Gallantly,
she struggled not to look, but when a glance slipped away from
her it didn't make any difference. Too dark to see anything,
anyway.

"Well, then, wait for me, because I am coming back."

Almost before she knew it, he was gone, jogging away towards the
sound of the unseen waves.

And she was alone. Blind. Disoriented. A pressure in her
throat. She felt an almost overwhelming compulsion to follow
down the beach after him, and she fought hard against it. Made
herself sit down. Sat there, suddenly cold. Watching the clouds
eat the stars. Hoping he didn't underestimate the waves.

It seemed like he was gone a long time. Too long. Long enough
for too many imaginings to race through her mind. Finally, when
she just couldn't stand it anymore, she walked slowly to the edge
of the foam. Half sensed and half seen, the shadow of Mulder
separated itself gradually from the churning darkness, and walked
towards her out of the surf.

"Worried?" He leaned close over her, shook his head like a dog
so that salt droplets splattered in her face, and he laughed.

"You bastard," she said mildly, and she shoved his wet shoulder.
Cool skin, wetted with ice water.

"Brrrr!" he said, clapping himself on the arms, and jogged back
up the beach. He used his T-shirt for a towel, struggled
awkwardly with his jeans and sweater, and then, rolling his
boxers and socks inside the T-shirt, sat down to put on his
shoes. "You should have come in," he said.

"Why?"

"I don't know. New experience." He sounded hyped, high.

Walking back down the beach, he said, "I have sand in my jeans."

"New experience?"

"Okay, I guess I had that coming."

"Yep."

He was walking fast, making her work to keep up. The soft sand
yielded too much, gave her nothing to push against. He didn't
touch her. She started to loop her arm with his and then thought
better of it, running her hand awkwardly over the back of his
elbow and small of his back instead. She thought he turned his
head towards her, but she wasn't sure. They didn't talk.

****************************

By the time they reached the wooden stairs, Mulder seemed to have
warmed up. He slowed his pace a little, and they climbed up into
the minimal light of the lodge grounds. The little individual
log cabins that edged the bluff were all asleep. Mulder's cabin
was the last in the row, at the margin of the forest. Scully
waited, nervously, while he fumbled around with the keys.

Mulder opened the door and held it. She stepped ahead into the
dark room. The door shut behind them with a click, and the
quality of privacy changed. The vast, windy, echolessness
abruptly cut off, replaced by a denser sort of privacy, the kind
that sticks to your skin. More intimate, and more personal.
More suggestive. Harder to wash off.

"Mulder, where are the lights?" Scully turned. She could feel
her heart beginning to pound in her throat.

He didn't answer. Just a soft, painful breath like a whimper.
Then, with a sort of vertigo, she felt his hands reaching for
her. As she had known they would. As she had assured herself
they wouldn't. As if it were inevitable, as if this whole long
day, this trip, this week, this month, as if all of their
partnership had only been leading up, inevitably, to this. To
Mulder's hands, reaching for her in a dark hotel room. Where she
hadn't planned to be.

One hand found the nape of her neck, the other her hip. He
leaned back against the door and drew her towards him, close
against his body.

She didn't resist. Didn't react. It was too much like a dream,
too unreal. She was numb. As if from a distance, she felt him
kissing her hair, her face. Felt him slipping lower on the door,
straddling her with bent knees, clutching her tighter. He was
damp, and smelled of the sea. He was ready. Her head started to
spin. Her heart was beating so fast she could feel herself
shaking. She could hear Mulder's blood singing with a fine, high
pitch, and she knew that she could fall. His mouth searched for
hers, and she could feel his hard-on pressing against her
stomach, and a place deep inside her cried out with a voiceless
wail. "No, no," she heard herself muttering. "Mulder, stop it."

He froze.

His lips brushing her lips.

Froze.

His heartbeat shaking both of them. "Why?" he whispered without
moving.

She nuzzled her lips against his. Unable to answer. Unable to
let go. His lips were so close. His body. Offering himself;
easily hurt. Mulder, who'd once represented everything she'd
thought of as irrational. Every rule she'd ever promised herself
not to break. She pressed her lips more strongly against his
lips, and then it happened, and her tongue was in his mouth, and
they were kissing, desperately, passion raging through them both,
and he was sucking on her tongue, a mewling lament in his throat,
her throat. Not dreamlike and detached at all, now that the
whole room had tipped, and Mulder had bent her backwards,
sweeping her off her feet like a movie kiss, and --

Then he stopped. A tearing groan came out of his throat. He let
out a long, shaky breath into her mouth. "Not like this," he
muttered brokenly. "I'm so sorry, I can't do this. Not right
now. Not like this." And he extricated himself. Pushed her
away.

She spun around, sagged back against the door, staring, as he
walked away from her, through the dark room.

The bathroom light switched on. He closed the bathroom door.

In the light that streamed under the crack of the door, Scully
could make out the features of the room. Couch in this corner,
bed over there. One bed.

Not thinking, not letting herself feel, she went to sit on the
couch, in the dark. She could hear Mulder turning on the shower.

After a long while he came out, wrapped in a towel. "Forgot my
clothes," he muttered, digging through his bag. He didn't seem
worried that she was watching him. Turning his back to her, he
pulled on a pair of boxers before dropping the towel. Then a T-
shirt. He glanced her way, and smiled a tired smile.

"Let's light a fire."

Crossing in front of her, he crouched down on his heels and
started poking around in front of the little fireplace. He
struggled with it for a long time. Every time he struck a match
a little sputter of sulfur lit his profile. He looked very
intent, hard at work. She went and knelt beside him, and helped.
"Not like that." She rearranged the kindling and wadded paper,
and lit four places with one match. Mulder watched her, elbows
on his knees.

"You're good at that." He stroked her cheek with the back of his
fingers. She could feel his eyes.

"Sometimes I get lucky," she said breathlessly. And pressed her
cheek against his hand, just a little. With his fingertips, he
caressed her lips.

"Come on," he said, in that deeper voice that made her shiver.
He drew her to her feet, and started leading her to the couch.

"Mulder ..."

"It's okay, I'm not going to try anything again tonight, I
promise."

Wryly, she smiled. "No, actually -- " Her voice came out husky.
"I was going to ask why you stopped." Get this over with, she
thought. She was ready for rejection, ready to hear she'd read
him wrong, that she'd misunderstood his intentions. Ready to go
back to being just partners, the way they were supposed to be.
Or, at least she thought so. So why was her heart in her throat?

The trouble was that the evidence of her senses didn't fit very
well with her theory of professional detachment. This
electricity between them complicated everything, mussing up her
images of things. It made her feel cut adrift, threatened her
beliefs. As if even the most fundamental realities of her world
might be called at any moment into question. This was the same
way she always felt, with Mulder.

They were stopped in the middle of the floor, his hand on her
arm, firelight flaming against the side of his face, and his eyes
sparkling. "If I seduced you tonight, you'd just rationalize it
away in the morning," he said.

"Huh?" She gulped.

Mulder chuckled. Let go of her. Moved over to the couch and
flopped down, slouching. "Scully, I know you too well --" he
said, and her mind started racing. She stood there dumbly,
staring at him while his mouth moved, and what she heard was,
'We're good friends, let's not mess it up just because we're
drunk. It wouldn't work anyway. You want the whole world
explainable and locked in a box, and that's not what turns me on.
I don't have those feelings for you, Scully, I'm sorry if you
misunderstood.' And her stomach knotted up in a spasm, and she
felt like she was going to be sick. In fact ... She hovered
uncertainly, and considered making a dash to the toilet.

"What's wrong, Scully?" Mulder said. "You look a little green."
And it dawned on her that the words she'd heard in her mind had
not been the same words that came out of Mulder's mouth. With an
effort, stupidly, she stood her ground, and tried to piece it
back together from short term memory. Couldn't. She was still
too drunk.

"What did you say?" she said. "Say that again."

"I said you look a little green. Want some alka seltzer or
something?"

"Before that."

Long pause. Deeper devilment in his eyes. "I *said*, I know you
too well, Scully. I know how your mind works. We're both drunk.
If I seduce you now, no matter how good it is or how much it
turns you on, in the morning you'll start pretending it wasn't
real. And I'm not going to let you, because this is too
important."

"Oh." She turned away from him. Started digging in her
suitcase.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm going to take a shower, if you don't mind," she said. In a
brittle voice.

The shower smelled like Mulder, a visceral reminder that, only
moments before, he had stood here too. In this same place,
naked, letting this water stream over his skin. Touching
himself? Had he touched himself? She couldn't get it out of her
head, the feel of kissing him. The feel of letting herself be
pressed between his legs, of wrapping her arms around his
shoulders, of ... Mulder was right. She was drunk. She
shouldn't think like this. She wouldn't be feeling this way if
she weren't drunk. She was too tired, that's all. Shouldn't
have tried to keep up with his drinking -- stupid, for someone
her size. She turned the water cooler, raised her face into the
spray, and then came out gasping.

Drying off, she dressed shakily in sweats and a big shirt. Went
back out to sit beside him on the couch. She smiled, weakly.

"You okay?" he asked.

She nodded. Laid her head back. "I'm fine," she said. The fire
was beginning to warm the room. Sleeplessness, and alcohol, and
release from tension began to take their toll. Scully felt
Mulder gather her under his arm, and she cuddled against him
unselfconsciously.

"Don't worry, Scully," he murmured into her hair. "There's
always tomorrow."

"Mmm," she said, and drifted off to sleep.

****************************

The fire was low in the room. Scully came groggily awake in
Mulder's arms. He was carrying her. "What're you doing?"

"Ssh. I'm putting you to bed. Go back to sleep."

Outside was a sound like thunder, and the hissing rumble of
drenching rain.

Mulder laid her gently onto the big bed, and pulled the covers up
over her. Tucked her in. Sleepily, she watched him, blinking.
He kissed her forehead, and turned away.

"Where're you going?"

"I'm going to sleep on the couch," he said.

"You can sleep here."

"No, I can't."

Scully settled her head down into the pillow. "Thank you,
Mulder," she whispered. And almost fell back asleep. But not
quite. The rain was heavy on the roof, near overhead.
Insistent.

Her eyes followed Mulder, through flickering shadows. He went to
the window, and stood for a long time looking out. Flash of
light, silhouetting him in blue, and then the roll of thunder.

"Aren't you going to sleep?" she whispered.

"I'll sleep. Don't worry about me."

But he didn't sleep, and as she watched him she felt herself
waking up, more and more. More awake than she ever remembered
feeling.

And through the flashes of lightning, the falls of darkness, many
Mulders chased each other in front of her mind's eye. Mulder
looking out at the rain. Mulder with his face tipped up to the
sky. Mulder flashing his little light at unseen spaceships,
always pressing her to admit what they both knew was true. Proof
or no proof. Mulder running out naked into the waves at
midnight, chasing in the footsteps of some character from a book.
Mulder trusting her to follow.

She told herself to sleep, but sleep didn't come. She watched
him. He prowled, slowly, restlessly, from window to window. He
turned to look at her, seemed to study her. She kept her eyes
almost closed, and pretended to be asleep. Apparently satisfied,
Mulder let himself quietly out. Scully didn't move. She knew
he'd be back. All he was wearing was his underwear. If she
closed her eyes, she could see him out there, raising up his
hands into the rain. But she didn't follow him. Ten minutes
later he crept back, shivering and soaked. Stripped in a dark
corner, without looking right or left. Put on dry boxers, and
curled up in a blanket on the couch. He didn't sleep. Tossed
around on his back and stared at the ceiling.

How like Mulder not to sleep. She tried not to think about him,
but couldn't. And the bed seemed very big, and lonely. A weight
came up in her, a pressure in her chest until she felt she must
stop breathing, or scream. She saw the image of herself, chasing
after Mulder, always desperate to hold him back. Herself,
sitting on the beach alone, hugging herself, while Mulder ran
alone out into the waves. And herself always trying to explain
away everything he cared about most. What had he said? That in
the morning she'd start pretending it wasn't real? It was like a
knife twisting in her throat to think about that. Didn't he
understand she wanted to believe as much as he did? In her
heart, Scully wanted to believe. She just couldn't let go of
science to do it. Not if they were ever going to convince anyone
else. And anyway, the science was the best part. This was what
science was *like*, damn it, this endless struggle to understand
and explain the phenomenological world. With Mulder, she was
closer to the spirit of pure science than she had ever dared hope
to be in her life. Didn't he know that? Didn't he understand
how much the X-files mattered to her? Did he really think of her
as a willful skeptic, who would shut her eyes to the truth just
because it didn't fit what she'd learned in school? Did he think
she was that cold?

Maybe he was right. Maybe she'd been trying to swim with one
foot on the ground.

Well, what if she let go? What if she took one step closer, one
single step closer to him? She'd be out of her depth. She knew
it. With Mulder, but out of her depth. And maybe no turning
back. There'd be nothing in her world to hold on to but him, and
that thought terrified her, petrified her, had kept her frozen
and half numb for too long.

There must be a crack under the door. A puff of rainy sea air
breathed across her face. And all at once with a rising,
blinding panic, Scully saw herself sitting out her whole life on
the beach, never ever rushing out into the waves with Mulder...

She sat straight up. Her heart was racing. Mulder's back was
turned to the room.

"Mulder!" she almost shouted at the back of his neck.

"Hmtt?" He jumped. Twisted around to face her.

Long pause. "Never mind." Her voice shook.

"What?" he said, rubbing his eyes.

They watched each other in the dim light.

"Mulder, get your ass over here."

He didn't seem to move. If his expression changed, it was too
dark to be sure. But something changed. Subtle as the focus of
an eye. And then he threw back the cover, and slowly stood.

He came across the room toward her like a stalking cat.
Smoldering with intensity, unblinking, his eyes never straying
from her face. He moved like a predator, graceful and cat-sure.
He raised one knee onto the bed, pivoted closer, and then stopped
short. Swallowed. Bit his lips. Looked for one instant like he
was going to cry. "Oh, god," he breathed in a voice like a sob.
And he raised one trembling hand to her face, caressing her
cheek. His eyes searching hers were dark with desire, dangerous
with passion. And more than that, his soul was in his eyes.
Then he grabbed her roughly by the nape of her neck, and his
mouth was on hers, in hers, burning. Tongues together. Mulder
forcing her back, against the pillow, against the wall, pinning
her, his hands hot on her body, gripping between her legs.
Scully moaned. She clutched him hard, and tried to roll him. He
was too heavy for her, yet he moved at her lightest touch. They
tumbled together on the bed. She grasped for his erection,
squeezed hard, reveled in the groan that slipped from his mouth
into hers. She was out of her head, rocking and gasping, taking
joy in the strength of his arms, the touch of his hands,
breathing in deep the scent of him -- she was awash in sensation
beyond any kind of rational thought, and her world was without
mooring -- she was buffeted, helpless and eager, by waves of
sensation, responsiveness, affinity. Interanimate, as if they
were one soul. This was how she'd always known it would be, and
always feared it would be, and he'd already dragged off her
shirt, stripped off her sweat pants, and her underwear. One of
his hands squeezed her breast, so tight it almost hurt, and the
other was inside her body, teasing her with one finger, and then
two. Rubbing her inside so that she moaned into his mouth, and
then he was on top of her, and it was almost going to happen, it
was starting to happen, and she wanted it, and --

"Stop!"

"Hnh?"

"Condom!"

"Uh, Scully, I don't think I have one."

"Okay, okay. Get up." She pushed. Couldn't move him. Shoved
again. "Get off me, Mulder."

"Oh, god!" He moved, groaning.

"I'm coming right back, stupid," she said, shakily, and bit his
shoulder, grazed her teeth along his arm. He shivered.

"*You* have a condom?"

"Christ, Mulder, what kind of question is that? Remember safe
sex?" She scrambled naked out of bed, trying to be graceful on
her way to the bathroom but then fumbling her toiletry bag and
spilling the contents all over the bathroom floor. Picking
through the rubble, she chose out the little purse that held the
condoms, and let everything else lie where it'd fallen.

"Scully, who were you planning to use it with?" He sounded
worried. Scully sat down on the toilet, and tried to make her
muscles relax enough to pee. She fumbled with the clasp, fished
out one condom, and then, hesitating, tossed the case back on the
floor with everything else. <Oh God, is this really happening,
oh God, oh God.> She squeezed her eyes tight shut.

Back in the doorway, she said, "I do sometimes have a life, you
know." She threw the condom at him from the bathroom door. His
eyes flashed.

"*One* rubber? Bring the whole package. You *do* have more,
right?"

"Well, I -- yeah -- "

"You planning on rationing them?"

"I --"

"Give them to me. I want them where I can get at them. We're
not just doing this just once. You understand that,
right?"

She swallowed. Turned on her heel. Picked up the purse off the
floor. Reached for the light switch.

He stopped her again. "Leave the light on," he said. Slowly, as
if by a will other than her own, her hand hesitated over the
switch, and then fell to her side.

Mulder was stretched out on the bed, watching her. He was nude,
his erection huge and dark, resting to the right on his stomach.
He had a man's look in his eyes, the look she had tried so hard
not to notice, whenever she'd caught glimpses of it before. Now
she looked. Pulling the door almost closed behind her, slowly,
she moved back towards him. Handed over the case of condoms.

He took it without looking at it. "Okay, Scully," he said, "you
feel safe now?" There was a perilous kind of laugher behind his
voice. Hot adoration in his eyes. "I wouldn't want you to feel
un-*safe*." He tossed the case on the bedside table, and put his
hand behind her head. Threading his fingers into her hair, he
gripped hard. Almost hurting her. She just stared at him,
mesmerized. "This is it, you know," he said softly. And he
pulled her to him and kissed her, hard. His other hand was
between her legs.

And he rolled her down against the pillows, sucked her throat,
her breasts, her belly button. She reached for his shoulders to
pull him back up, but it was too late, and he was between her
legs. She gasped out loud as he went down on her, feeling the
color rise in her cheeks. "Don't," she moaned, "don't. You
don't have to do that." He didn't seem to be listening. Her
whole body was responding, even as all the nuns of her Catholic
School past cringed in shame. She had a secret distaste for
this, a self-conscious certainty that it put her at a
disadvantage. Exposed her lust, exposed her for a carnal being
who would ... who would ... His fingers were inside her body, and
he was licking all around. Not shy, timid licks, but licking her
as if he wanted to drink her down, as if he couldn't get enough,
forcing his tongue right into the mouth of her body, and she
could feel the heat gushing out of her, the sticky, personal
smells of her body rushing into his mouth, and she was ashamed.
"Mulder," she protested, between gritted teeth, but he went right
on with what he was doing, his fingers massaging rhythmically
inside her, and then his mouth found the spot, sucking now, so
that, despite her best intentions, her body began to arch. She
gasped, cried out. His fingers inside here were greedy,
ungentle, and she felt helpless, and she felt so good. Mulder
could do whatever he wanted, and she couldn't stop him, didn't
want to stop him, but the way he was rubbing her inside was so
intense she felt she was in danger of losing control of her
bladder, even though rationally she knew it was empty, and the
room was filled with gasping and moaning, a really shameful
overabundance of gasping and moaning, and surely all that noise
couldn't be coming from *her*, and then she realized with a shock
that it wasn't. At least half of it was Mulder. Mulder was in
ecstasy. She reared up on her elbows, and struggled to see his
face. His face was buried in her, and the waves of sensation he
was creating with his tongue, his insistent licking and sucking,
were pulling her closer and closer to the edge, embarrassingly
exposed and alone. She wanted to focus on him, and couldn't, her
head lolling back, her knees pumping restlessly up and down,
shifting nervously as if to run away, but she couldn't. By two
fingers and the heat of his mouth, he held her captive. One hand
grabbing her ass.

"Mulder!" Making a supreme effort, she reached down to grip his
hair, pull him up. She was throbbing between the legs, her blood
was molten in her veins, her breath ragged, and she expected to
see him patient, and calm, and half-aroused. That pleasant,
magnanimous look men pasted on when ... But Mulder's face was
not like that at all. Half his face was smeared with the juices
of her body, his mouth half open, his eyes half closed. He
looked stoned, beatific. "You don't have to do that, you know."
Her voice was shaking so bad she could barely get the words out,
and though she barely whispered, the words sounded unnaturally
loud in the room. Mulder looked at her like it took him a moment
to understand what he was saying. Then dreamily he smiled.
"But I *want* to," he said, and lowered his mouth onto her
again, very slowly, watching her with the devil in his eyes. His
tongue teased at her, and then his whole mouth, and she could
feel the waves of sensation rising up, and up, and knew with a
horrible certainty that she was not going to be able to wait for
him. She was going to come first, alone, because he wanted it
that way.

"God, Mulder, stop! I want -- Uaaghh --"

"Uh-huh, tell me." His voice was muffled. "Tell me what you
want."

"Oh, God, you know -- you know --"

"Mmmp-mm."

"I want you inside, please, oh God --" Her head was tossing side
to side, her fingers clutching the sheets. Suddenly she realized
that he wasn't touching her anymore. He was raised up off her,
watching her with hungry eyes. But her body was still aching,
pulsing, squirming, she felt hot all over, stared at him with
desperate eyes --

"You're beautiful, Scully, god you're so beautiful," he said, in
a choking voice. He raised the little silver packet of the
condom to his mouth, broke the edge with his teeth. Helpless,
she watched as he smoothed it on. "Satisfied?" he said. "I'm
going to fuck you when I'm ready, don't worry about that."

And he lowered his mouth again. She pulled a corner of the
pillow over her face, and bit it to keep from screaming.
Teetered on the brink of orgasm, feeling the pulsing of life in
her body, hot all over, burning where his mouth was on her, and
beginning to be desperate, beginning to wonder if he was going to
make her beg. She hovered just at the edge, very close to
release. Sometimes she thought she was almost there, and then
Mulder would change his rhythm. Did he understand what he was
doing to her? Never completely breaking, the sensations went on
building and lifting, higher and higher, more and more
impossible, until she began to float, half out of her body, out
of her mind, drifting in some altered state where nothing but
Mulder was real, and where her body felt better than she ever
remembered it feeling, so good, in fact, that she couldn't decide
if she was having orgasms or not, because it just went on, and
on, in an incredible, blissful, overabundance of sensation.
Mulder lifted up his face, and stared at her, with avid eyes.
Almost smiling, open mouthed.

"Ready?" he whispered, and suddenly he was inside her.

She was already coming, and he was only on his first thrust.
This was impossible, couldn't be happening, all her nerves sang
out in protest, over-excited almost to the point of pain, almost
enough to make her want to run away, except that she was helpless
to move, helpless to speak, helpless to form a coherent thought.
Only these waves of sensation, and the overwhelming recognition
that it was Mulder inside her. Mulder, filling her so full it
brought a sob from her throat. Mulder doing this to her, and
then, as he began to rock gently into her, the over-stimulated
sensation passed, and suddenly she was coming again, hard.
Sobbing, her body gripping his cock. Mulder stopped very still.
A very gentle smile broke over his face. He held himself quiet,
and let them both feel it, the rhythmic clutching of her muscles,
the way her body gripped his in a secret pulse, totally beyond
her volition. "I can *feel* you," he whispered, in a tone of
pure awe. He studied her face as she came, and he broke out in a
sweat, beads of perspiration standing out on his forehead. His
eyes were wide and dark. He moaned.

And then he was moving again, slowly, with a steady thrusting
pulse, and for Scully, one orgasm faded into another. Mulder got
his arms under her legs, folding her in half, penetrating deeper.
And another orgasm spun her head, so that she could barely
breath, barely keep up. Passively, she watched him take her left
leg, and pass it over his head, so that it rested on the opposite
side from where it had any right to be. He let her other leg
slip down. Gripped her shoulders. Half turned her, so that she
rested on one hip, his knees straddling her thigh. And when he
did that, his thrusts became deeper still, hitting a spot inside
her she felt sure had never been touched before, and she
screamed. Mulder raised his head and laughed. A mad, maniacal,
delirious laugh.

And she got her eyes open, twisted her head to look at him,
realized he was coming, watched his face as he came. The
terrible intimacy of his face. And then he collapsed across her,
breathing hard. He slid out of her. Flung himself down beside
her on the bed. Panting. And instinctively, reflexively, she
rolled toward him, clung to him wetly, her body still shaking
with passion as if ... my god ... she curled spasmodically
against him in a ball, drawing her knees up against her stomach,
gasping into the sweaty heart-thumping dampness of his chest ...
and understood suddenly that it wasn't over. Mulder hugged her
under one arm, patting her shoulder absently while she continued
to shake, and the orgasms kept right on cascading through her.
Beyond her control. Finally she stopped shuddering, and her
breathing slowed. She was able to uncurl her legs. Raising her
face to look at him, she found him watching her curiously. He
smiled. "Have fun?" he asked. She sighed, and pressed her lips
into his shoulder, too sated to reply.

They lay for a long time unmoving.

"Where the hell did you learn that, Mulder?" she asked, after a
while, and felt him drawing breath to answer -- "Never mind,"
she said quickly. "I don't think I want to know." She had
started to roll back away from him, onto her back, but when she
did the sheets were wet and cold under her ass. She flinched.

Mulder chuckled. "Shall we argue about who gets to sleep in the
wet spot?" he said. "I mean, it is, after all *your* wet spot."

"*My* ... Mulder, *I* wasn't the one who ... uh, that is --"

Damn him, he was laughing again. He rolled over on top of her,
pinned her down in the cold slimy place, and he was kissing her
eyelids, her temples, her lips, the hollow under her chin. The
smell of herself on his face was potent. Disconcerting. "I
mean, *you're* the one who--"

"Oh, it was *my* doing, was it? Let me make sure I'm getting
this. You're not responsible? You, Dana Scully, my beautiful --
gorgeous -- infuriating -- hard-headed -- amazing --" he
punctuated his words with kisses, "best friend in the whole
world, *you* lost control?"

"I -- I -- *Mul-der* --"

He laughed again. "Okay, you don't have to say it," he said
generously, and rolled her up and over him, into the dry side of
the bed. "You can sleep over here."

She snuggled against the length of him. Just for a minute.
Luxuriating in the dry bed, the almost dried Mulder. "I've gotta
pee," she said, and pulled away. In the bathroom, she cleaned
herself up a little. Drank some water. Refilled the glass, and
brought the glass out to him. He drained it. She climbed back
in beside him, wrapped herself around him again, and they both
fell asleep together, in each other's arms. They slept the rest
of the night holding each other, without letting go. Sometimes
one of them moved, and then the other shifted in the embrace, but
neither of them rolled away. They hung on tight. As if even in
dreams they were together. As if they were afraid.

****************************

Mulder woke up early, feeling very safe. He stayed carefully
still, aware of Scully sleeping quietly in his arms. Shifting
his head, cautiously and slightly, so he could look at her, his
breath caught in his throat. She was beautiful. Innocent. Her
hair messy around her face. He wanted to cradle her in his arms,
protect her from all harm. He could feel the insistence,
kindling again in his blood.

Slowly, carefully, he stretched out his arm, reaching for the
purse of rubbers.

Scully woke up gradually, to a feeling of warmth, of rising heat.
Of being kissed, being fondled. Sweet, and gentle. A sleepy
love-making. Smiling, she opened her eyes. Mulder was on top of
her. "Good morning," he whispered, sliding inside her and
beginning to move. She sighed, and clasped him tight. Rocked
with him, sensual and slow, and then tumbled over again into
contented sleep.

Mulder held her for a long, long time, stroking her hair, and
memorizing and cherishing every detail of her face, even down to
the vulnerable soft shadows under her eyes. He wanted to kiss
under her eyes, but didn't want to wake her again. Her lips were
rosy and swollen, and her delicate pale skin burned pink from the
stubble of his beard. It sent a pang through his heart to see
her like this. He felt strongly possessive. Guilt, mixed with
tenderness. He'd have to remember to shave.

Finally, with exaggerated care, he disentangled himself, tucked
the blankets more cozily around Scully, and got up.

Padding nude to the window, he peeked out from the edge of the
drape. It was a grey, threatening, edge of the earth sort of
day. <We have to build a sandcastle,> he thought. And then,
<I'm hungry.>

When Scully woke up they could have a real breakfast in the
restaurant -- or lunch, if she slept that late. Where was that
bag of groceries, anyway? His stomach rumbled. Juice, yogurt,
deli section lasagna. If he ate some of it now, they could use
the plastic containers on the sandcastle. Mulder looked around
the room for the bag. He must have left it in the trunk.
Pulling on some clothes, he slipped out softly, into the bracing,
salty air.

Scully slept.

As he reached for the trunk, Mulder heard a sound. Like a
faraway ringing. "Shit," he muttered under his breath, and
almost turned around and walked away. But he didn't walk away.
Couldn't walk away. Puppet-like, as if moving to a force outside
his own will, he reached out his hand --

Lifted the trunk, and the ringing got louder. His cell phone, or
hers? His. He picked it up, gingerly. Looked at the name on
the display.

"chris carter," he read out loud.

And Mulder hesitated. Chaos in his brain, a superposition of
quantum states. His universe fluctuated wildly, on the verge of
bifurcating, a cascade effect of tiny moments, gaining momentum,
of inconsistencies, built up for too many seasons, now, and just
on the brink of coming down in a landslide. From force of
routine habit, and too many episodes, Mulder flipped the phone
open, and --

Well, never mind. I don't have to tell you that part. You've
already seen it on TV.

In the *other* universe, simultaneously, Mulder let the phone
drop unanswered out of his hand. "Fuck you," he said very
quietly. Snatched up the groceries, slammed the trunk, turned
his back, and walked back to the cabin. Back to Scully, warm,
and sweet, and smelling of sex and sleep.

****************************

Their sandcastle was lopsided and exuberant, with yogurt cup
turrets, and all decorated with little stones, and bits of shell
and driftwood. Mulder's parts had lots of bridges, and tunnels
that kept falling down. Scully knocked herself out digging the
moat. "Get out of the way, Mulder!" she elbowed him in the ribs.
"I've got to get this right before the tide comes in."

And when the tide came, it filled the moat very nicely. For just
a little while. Splattered all over in sand, they sat arm in arm
and watched as the incoming waves, and the first drops of rain,
began to dissolve their castle away.

"By tonight it will be gone," Mulder said thoughtfully. "Not a
trace. There'll be nothing to show we ever built it."

It was cold, and they were alone on the beach. "But we did,"
said Scully, and pushed him over, hard. Rolling in the damp
sand, laughing at the world, they kissed.

Then they turned back to the cabin, walking easily, hand in hand.

"How do all these people keep getting your number, anyway,
Mulder?" Scully asked.

He shrugged. "Beats me."

"I'm glad you didn't answer."

"I'm glad you're not pretending nothing happened last night."

They looked into each other's eyes, and smiled the totally drama-
less smile of true love. The sort of smile you want to smile
yourself, not read about. Not at all the kind of smile that
makes for a good storyline, except by the lights of the people
who are actually IN the story themselves.

A private smile.

****************************

Over dinner, she watched his hands in the candlelight. Musing on
what those hands had touched. Not just her body. And not just
terrestrial things, either, maybe. Maybe extra-terrestrial
things. The bravest, most eager hands she knew, and the most
graceful. She like the way he held his wine glass.

"Penny for your thoughts," he said.

She shook her head. "Nothing," she said. "Just you."

"Oh, *thanks*."

"You have beautiful hands."

He looked really startled. Smiled at her shyly. "It's so weird
to talk to you like this," he said. "I mean, it's *great*, but
it's weird."

"You like talking about your hands?"

Was Mulder blushing? "You know what I mean," he said.

"Yeah. We don't talk enough, usually."

"I guess not."

"You know, Mulder, I'm glad it wasn't an X-file. I mean," she
added quickly, "I really *love* the X-files, you do know that,
right?" She implored him with her eyes, and felt relieved when
he gave a secret little nod.

"I know," he said soundlessly, just forming the words with his
lips.

"But I'm glad it wasn't an X-file this time. It's nice to have a
break, you know?"

"Yeah."

They both sipped their wine, companionably.

"Actually, Scully, there's something I've been meaning to tell
you." He didn't look right at her when he said it, just peeked
from the corner of his eye. Bad sign.

"Oh?"

"Yeah, I've been doing some thinking, and I started to wonder if
maybe we *should* re-open that Willowton abduction case."

Scully groaned.

"No, no, just hear me out, okay? Remember how Sterling at the
Post Office kept going on about all the sightings, the blue
lights hovering in the middle of the street?"

"How could I forget."

"But none of his times matched with Willis, two doors down in the
café."

"Not to mention that *her* lights were yellow. Mulder, we
already talked to half the population of the county, and we
couldn't find any two versions of the so-called visitations that
were even remotely similar. It was an obvious put up, a
publicity stunt! A little nowhere town making a half-baked
attempt to get itself on the map --"

"Well, half-baked or not, if I'm right, Scully, there may not be
anything *obvious* about it. Remember Emin, that weird little
bald guy in the music store? He kept saying, 'They're *all*
telling the truth, you just don't get it.'"

"Yeah, so? He was nuts."

"What if he wasn't? Isn't? He said we have to stop looking at
the evidence itself, and start looking at the spaces in
between..."

Scully felt a chill. There was no holding him back, when he got
this way. "Now you're going to start looking at the spaces
between the evidence, Mulder? Just how do you propose to do
that?"

He patted his hands on the air soothingly, palms down. "I don't
know yet. I don't know. But there's gotta be a pattern. Look,
if they wanted to fake a publicity stunt, why didn't they work
out a better story, huh? To get that many people in on it,
they'd've had to hold a town meeting, or something, right? And
then they would've all been reading off the same script. The
set-up *should* have been obvious! *Way* more obvious than what
we actually observed. I mean, when you're dealing with traumatic
events like fatality accidents or alien abductions, the eye
witness accounts never jibe exactly, anyway. You know that as
well as I do, Scully. In fact, it's when the reports are too
*similar* that you start suspecting foul play, right?"

Scully sighed. Ground her forehead into her palm, and rested it
there. "You're doing it again."

"What?"

"Mulder, you can't -- you *cannot* -- infer the existence of a
thing, based solely on the absence of evidence to the contrary.
It's spurious logic." Lifting her head, she started rubbing her
temples. "And we're not exactly talking about minor
discrepancies, here."

"Yeah, I admit there was an unusual amount of variation, but --"

"Half the town reports the abductee being returned *before* she
was abducted, Mulder."

"I know, I know." Mulder ran his fingers wildly through his
hair. "That's the part I keep getting hung up on. I still gotta
work it out in my head. But I just can't shake this hunch that
there's something we missed, Scully. Can't you *feel* it? I
want to have another talk with Emin. Maybe --"

He went racing on, shining with excitement. Scully listened
quietly, amusement in her eyes, and a cold, sinking feeling in
the pit of her stomach. She had to wonder where this latest
brainstorm would take them. But his enthusiasm was contagious.

After a while she said, "Okay, okay, let's just say your hunch is
right, and there's some logical explanation for all the
inconsistencies. These sightings still don't fit any established
profile. Real spaceships don't look like that."

"What if it's a different group?"

"New extraterrestrials? Not our little grey friends?" Her mind
reeled. Then suddenly she got a creepy feeling on her skin like
being watched, and she saw Mulder's head start to turn.

Automatically, Scully slapped her hand to her throat to cover her
hickey - a very fresh, purple hickey that had been attracting the
fascinated stares of their young waiter ever since they walked
in. She turned quickly, and there he was, their waiter. He was
just standing there dumbly with the dessert tray, looking
bewildered, looking back and forth between them. One hand still
covering the hickey, Scully clapped the other hand over her
mouth, and bit it, trying desperately not to laugh. How long had
the kid been listening, anyway?

"Don't mind my friend, here," Mulder said smoothly. "She gets
this way sometimes." He smiled sweetly at Scully. "Would you
like a chocolate mousse, honeybun?"

"Aeerrgg," she choked, and kicked him under the table. Hard.

Wrinkling his nose, Mulder made an 'ow' face, and laughed. She
liked the sound of him laughing.

****************************

As the shadows of the evening crawled across the sea, and rose up
from out of the inland woods, they walked hand in hand along the
top edge of the bluff under a gloomy canopy of firs. Trilliums
were in bloom, glowing whitely, and the forest smelled of loam
and mushrooms. It felt nice to be together in the woods, and not
on a case. Not in fear of pre-historic insects, and not looking
for dead bodies. Scully breathed deep.

Mulder had finally cooled it with the Willowton crap. "Ah, we
can talk about it later," he'd said. "We're on vacation." And
again she felt that chill, because vacations ended. But at least
for now, when he looked into her eyes it was as if his whole
attention would always belong to her. And that was nice -- more
than nice.

They strayed off the path, beyond the last picnic table. The air
was damply cool, and no one was around. Then, circling around a
fringe of low brush, they came unexpectedly upon -- their waiter.
He was sitting on a log, with a cigarette between his knees, his
head thrown back. A twig cracked, and his head snapped up. The
cigarette moved quickly behind him.

"Uh, sorry, uh --" The words choked and sputtered out of him,
and awkwardly he jumped to his feet, flushing and glassy eyed.

"How ya doin'?" Mulder inquired, politely, and put out his hand.

"Uh, great, yeah, I, uh, hope you enjoyed your meal --" The boy
seemed to be having problems with the cigarette, quickly passing
it to the other hand behind his back so he could shake hands with
Mulder. Scully could feel Mulder's amusement without having to
look at him, but it took her a second to understand what he
thought was funny.

"Good food. Excellent service. Sorry we disturbed you, ah,
Ryan." He read the boy's name off his name tag, and Ryan blushed
again.

"That's alright. I'm off shift, now, you know. I was just
gonna, ah," he gestured at the water, the setting sun. Gestured
with the hand that held the cigarette -- which wasn't exactly a
cigarette after all. Scully smiled. So did Mulder.

"Mind if we join you?"

"Yeah, yeah. Sure," Ryan muttered, and sat back down on his log.
Mulder sat beside him, drawing Scully down with him.

"I'm George," Mulder said pleasantly, "and this is my wife ...
Henrietta." Scully made a tiny strangling sound at the back of
her throat. "Nice to meet you," she said, tightly. And she
fought the urge to put her hand back over her hickey.

"Better finish off that joint, before the wind does it for you."
Mulder nodded in the direction of Ryan's knee.

Ryan grinned. "It's probably gone out, anyway," he said. He
offered the joint, fishing in his pocket for a lighter. "Help
yourself."

"Thanks." Scully gaped in amazement, her eyes fixed on Mulder's
hand as he reached out, as if in slow motion, lifted the joint
from the boy's hand, and, sheltering it against the wind, relit
it. He inhaled a deep hit. "Here, *Henry,*" he croaked,
breathing in over the words instead of out. He was handing her
the joint. Waggling his eyebrows.

She knew her mouth was hanging open. Mulder just nudged her with
his elbow, urging silently. He was still holding the smoke in
his lungs. She had a bizarre uncomfortable flashback to Reggie
Hawthorn, back in the ninth grade -- the only stoner brave or
stupid enough to try to hit on a 'brain' like her. And she
remembered her mother's voice, saying, 'I'm so glad you don't
hang out with people like that, Dana.'

Mulder finally breathed back out. Looking quietly into his eyes,
she took the light little joint, and lifted it to her lips. It
was out again. He lit it for her, cupping his hand against the
wind, and she breathed in.

The three of them sat for a while in silence, looking out over
the beach, and the sea, and the setting sun.

"So, what'd'ya guys do?" Ryan asked after a while.

"FBI," Mulder answered. His expression didn't crack. He just
kept staring at the water. Ryan choked, and spit out smoke.

Scully slapped Mulder sharply on the knee, and he gasped,
grabbing her hand. Lacing their fingers together, he slid her
palm securely against the inside of his upper thigh.

She leaned around him, so she could see Ryan. "Just ignore him,"
she said. "We're on vacation."

****************************

When the cabin door clicked shut behind them, Scully dissolved in
almost silent giggles. "My God, Mulder, I can't even believe we
did that! I can't believe *any* of this! Who would believe
this!"

Mulder grinned his goofiest grin. "No one, Scully. *No one*
would believe this. And you know why? Because no one's gonna
tell 'em. Not me, not you, and *certainly* not Ryan!" He tipped
his head way down, and rested his forehead against hers,
laughing. Then he hugged her. "We escaped," he said. "It's
like I keep telling you."

"God, I haven't smoked in *years*!"

"Me neither. Feels good, doesn't it?" She liked the way his
voice was when he said that. "Can you feel it, Scully, like a
door opened just a little? Like everything is just a little more
three-dimensional than the last time you looked?"

She caught her breath. Her eyes were wide. "*Yeah,*" she
breathed softly.

"I gotta find some candles. Think the gift shop has candles?"

"Is the gift shop even still open?"

"Pour yourself some wine, I'll go check." He kissed her
forehead, and popped back out the door.

Scully sighed. Hugged herself, and spun around. Felt herself
grinning at the empty room. She couldn't remember ever being so
happy. <Wine,> she thought, <wine>. She didn't remember seeing
any wine in the grocery bag. No wine in the grocery bag. Must
be in his suitcase. Yup. Bottle of red wine tucked in the side
of his suitcase, next to his clean socks. She slipped her hand
into the pocket where Mulder always kept his Swiss army knife
with the corkscrew, and the first thing she fished up was a
package on incense. Incense?? "Clarity and Inspiration," she
read off the label. The package was already open, with a lighter
tucked in beside the sticks. She smiled.

Mulder's eyes lit up when he came back in. He lifted his head.
"You found the incense!" he said, sniffing the air. "Isn't this
stuff great?"

"Mulder, what else do I not know about you?"

He just laughed. "The gift shop was closed, but I sweet-talked
some candles from one of the bus-boys."

"I'm sorry I missed it."

"Yeah, I just mentioned *Ryan*, and --"

Scully gasped. "You didn't!" Even as she said it, she knew he'd
been teasing. That damn deadpan straight face of his -- but he
was laughing, now. She made playful slap at his chest; enjoyed
slapping his chest. Tried it again with the other hand, and at
the same time made a grab for his ribs. Mulder dropped the
candles on the floor, and raised his arms to defend himself. He
was cracking up. "Ouch! Ouch! No! No!" he crowed, almost
unintelligibly, through his giggles. Then he lunged for her.
"I'll teach you," he growled, and went down on top of her onto
the floor. "Uuff!" They rolled. Pinching and tickling and
wrestling around like kids, and both of them laughing so hard
they were almost crying. Then somehow they weren't laughing
anymore, and Scully was on the bottom. Mulder's weight was full
on top of her, immobilizing. His knees pinned her knees, and his
ankles pinned her ankles. His hands held her wrists above her
head. Then, dreamily, gripping her wrists, he brought his arms
down like wings so that her arms stretched out straight from her
shoulders, pulling her hard. He was watching her. He had
overpowered her. They looked into each other's eyes, and their
heartbeats sped up. Without letting go, he bent his head down,
and kissed her. A long, deliberate, and very thorough kiss.

"You're fun to wrestle with, Agent Scully," he breathed into her
mouth.

"Mmmm." She tested her muscles against his. "This feels so
good." She began to move against him, struggling in slow motion,
using almost her full strength. Enjoying the sensation that
there was no way she could break free. Her eyes drifted almost
closed. He watched her face in fascination, and his breath got
ragged.

"Shall I fuck you like this?" he whispered. "Right here on the
floor?"

Her head fell to one side, and she bit her lip. "Mmmm," she
said.

He ground his hips against her, slowly, and for a while not much
happened. They just basked in the sensuality of it, moving very
slowly against each other. Then Mulder said, "I think this is
something we should definitely explore. Later. Right now, let's
light some candles."

"Okay." She sighed contentedly, and he let her go. Helped her
to her feet.

"God, you're agreeable," he said. "Whoever would've thought!"
He sounded purely innocent, and delighted. And then he chuckled.
Pulled her close to him in a loose hug. Trailed his finger down
the front of her shirt, and whispered, "Be careful, Scully. Let
me really have my way with you, and who knows what'll happen. I
have some fantasies you may not be ready for."

She just stared, breathing hard. Her eyes dilated. "Okay," she
whispered, so soft he didn't hear.

****************************

They cuddled on the couch by candlelight, drinking wine, and
sharing old secrets. The high from the joint was fragile, and
would have been easily lost in the tumult of lovemaking. Neither
of them had smoked very much. Somehow, by wordless agreement,
they didn't want to waste it. And anyway, it was purely magical
just to be together, in this state of mind, caressing each other
till they purred. Describing to each other the candlelight. The
way things felt. The way things tasted. The way it was to be
Fox. The way it was to be Dana.

A long time later, Mulder made a trip to the bathroom. When he
returned, she was waiting. She caught him off guard. Grabbed
him by the hips, and shoved him back, unsuspecting, against the
nearest piece of wall. Unzipping his jeans, she went to her
knees, and took him into her mouth. And her blood raced at the
sound of his moan. Resolutely, she told the nuns in the back of
her mind to close their eyes, and shut the hell up.

He was instantly hard, and she couldn't take too much of him in
too fast without gagging. Using her hand as an extension of her
mouth, she sucked on the head, teased the sensitive underskin
with the tip of her tongue, and stole a look up at Mulder. His
head was thrown back, his eyes closed, his face very alien to her
because very male -- dangerously unshaven -- looking
disreputable in the dim light. And yet wholly familiar, because
Mulder. And wholly innocent.

Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes, and slowly took the
whole length of him into her mouth, down into her throat, tasting
the acrid saltiness of precum on the back of her tongue. Mulder
stayed very still, and let her.

And she reveled in the taste of him, and in the way he yielded to
her so completely.

After a while, she led him to the bed, pushed him down. Put a
condom on him while he watched, with serious eyes. Sat down on
him, and impaled herself slowly. He groaned, and bit his lip.
She felt almost too full, almost uncomfortable, and for a moment
she stayed still, willing her muscles to relax. Then, gently,
Scully began to rock. Mulder's eyes rolled up in his head. His
hands gripped her thighs.

It went on for a long, long time, and it felt very, very good,
but not quite --

"Can you get off this way?" Mulder whispered finally, through
gritted teeth.

She rolled around his words in her head for a while, before it
occurred to her to answer. "I'm not sure. Can you?"

"Not sure? What do you mean, you're not sure?" He thrust his
hips upward, suddenly and hard, stabbing into her, and she
gasped. Stopped rocking. Stared at him. He grinned. That
dangerous, wolfish grin.

All at once they were moving -- Mulder flung his legs around off
the side of the bed, and sat up, hugging her, and she was still
in his lap -- "Straighten your legs," he whispered urgently in
her ear.

"What?"

He chuckled. "Your legs, straighten your legs." And she did,
and he looped his arms under her knees. "Hang on," he said, and
stood up.

She almost fell backwards, sobbing. She clutched him round the
neck. The feeling of him inside her was so intense she thought
she'd split, and it felt so good she didn't care. She was
helpless in his arms, out of contact with any other point of
reality. Her whole reality was Mulder, and Mulder pounded into
her, letting her own weight swing her back down hard against him,
setting up a deliciously unruly, unholy rhythm that electrified
her whole body, stretched every nerve and made it sing, drove
every coherent thought from her mind, making even the nuns
disappear, and all she could focus on was Mulder, the sensations
washing through her, and her own voice sobbing, and sobbing and
sobbing into Mulder's neck. Helpless.

When at last he let her fall back down onto the bed, falling with
her, still inside, flinging her bodily around, to get the best
angle for his thrust, she cried out loud. Screamed. Mulder
didn't seem to notice, didn't seem to mind. She fumbled for a
pillow, bit it hard. Roughly, he pushed it away. "Make all the
noise you want," he gritted, huskily. And thrust, and thrust.
And she sobbed out loud. "NO ONE --" thrust, "CAN HEAR US --"
thrust, "JUST US --" thrust, "JUST ME --" thrust, "I LIKE IT --"
thrust, "I LIKE IT -" thrust, "go ahead -" thrust, "SCREAM." His
voice was feral, and the pressure inside her was so great she
felt her whole body melting, her head floating up, disattached.
And nothing else was clear at all until she felt him collapse
beside her, racked with gasping and the hammering of his heart.
Drenched in sweat. They both were. Still shaking with orgasms,
she lay where he dropped her like a rag doll, and a feeling
welled up through her stomach, through her solar plexus, an
amazingly wonderful feeling, and without warning, she felt
herself start to cry. Tears were streaming down her face, all
over Mulder's shoulder, and she couldn't stop. She was wracked
with sobs. And didn't know why. A physical/chemical/hormonal
thing like someone -- like Mulder -- flicked a switch.

Mulder was still too winded to talk. His ribcage was shuddering
with the beat of his heart, pumping much too hard. He made a
short barking sort of sound, and looked at her, with lazy, self-
satisfied eyes. "God," he gasped, "that really did it for ya,
huh?"

"You're amazing," she whispered, kissing his armpit because that
was what happened to be under her mouth. "God, Mulder, I love
you so much." The words just slipped out between the tears,
surprising her more than they seemed to surprise him. A little
frightened, she laid her arm across his damp chest, and ran her
hand over the slickness of his perspiring collar bone, and his
shoulder where it met his neck.

He captured her hand and kissed it. Still trying to get his
breath. "You're pretty amazing yourself," he gasped. She curled
up against his body, and held him while his heartbeat began to
calm, and his breathing to slow.

"Do you know how much I love you, Scully?" he said, when he'd
almost caught his breath. "I love you more than anyone. More
than anyone in the world."

****************************

FBI Headquarters, Washington D.C. Business as usual.

By the time they flew back in, Mulder had a new theory about the
Willowton case all worked out in his head.

"Remember that little girl on the swing?" he said, on the drive
from the airport. "She said, 'They told me they are four, and we
are only three. They told me they can see, what we can't see.'"

"She was *making up rhymes,* Mulder. She was swinging, and
making up rhymes."

"What if the visitors were from the fourth dimension? What if
that's the angle, Scully? What if Emin and the little girl are
the only ones who got it? Everyone else just reported what they
saw with their own eyes -- And if the beings are four
dimensional, it would be like eye-witness accounts of an apple in
Flatland. *Of course* the stories wouldn't seem to make any
sense. Not on the surface."

"Of course." Scully sighed.

"Emin kept saying, 'They're *all* telling the truth.' We've got
to talk to Emin. I don't think we asked the right questions last
time."

"Okay, Mulder. We'll talk to Emin."

But it didn't work out that way.

As it turned out, Emin Temelli was already dead. It took Mulder
less than ten minutes at his desk to pull up the obit. "Damn!
This says 'natural causes,' Scully. How much you wanna bet they
didn't even do an autopsy? And what's the *natural* cause of
death for a twenty-three year old? We've got to get a look at
that body --"

Scully leaned over next to him, skimming through the text on the
screen. "He's already been interred. If you're suggesting we
have the body exhumed, what basis --"

There was a tap at the door, and Skinner stuck his head in.
Poised over the computer screen, Mulder and Scully both looked up
at him with identical expressions -- polite, distracted, and too
busy to be bothered with small talk. Lost in their own world, as
usual. Skinner had planned to tease them about whatever it was
that had gone on during their mutual absence, but the words
fumbled and died in his throat. "Glad to see you guys, uh,
*both* of you, back. I hope you, uh -- *both* -- enjoyed the
break, and you're ready to get back to work?"

"Yes, sir."

"Thank you, sir."

"Good, good." He nodded at the computer screen. "Do I even want
to ask?"

"Uh -- " Mulder hesitated, "How about tomorrow?"

"Fine, fine." Skinner withdrew his head, and closed the door
with a sigh.

"Scully, this is too weird. I wanted to talk to Emin, and now
he's dead. Shit, we must've been onto something! What are they
trying to cover up?"

She bit her lip, and tried not to say it, but it popped out
anyway. "*They,* WHO, Mulder? You can't postulate a cover-up on
the basis of one single death with no suspicious circumstances!"

"No suspicious circumstances?! Doesn't this look suspicious to
you?"

"No. No, Mulder, it doesn't."

"Well, I'm suspicious," he mumbled.

****************************

For the next couple days Scully, if anything, overacted her role
of clinical detachment, for the simple reason that Mulder's
latest goose chase was getting on her nerves. And Mulder, for
his part, went around with that same irritating glint in his eye
he always had. But the X-files office was otherwise back to
normal, at least on the surface -- to eyes that didn't look deep
enough. Only one miniscule, barely perceptible, change: Mulder
wrote the single word, "Privacy," in neat block print on a tiny
scrap of paper, and pinned it to the corner of one of his UFO
pictures on the wall. It was all but buried in the mess.

On the evening of their third day back, Scully walked back into
the office hoping against hope that Mulder would be ready to call
it quits for the night and go home. Preferably with her. She
found him with his feet on his desk, listening to a tape. It was
Emin Temelli's voice, the interview they'd done with him in
Willowton. <You're too hung up on who's telling the truth, man!
It's like I keep telling you, they're *all* telling the truth.
Just depends on who sees it first, man, *depends* --> Mulder
paused the tape.

"What're you listening to that for?" Scully asked.

Emin hadn't said much, but what he had said, he'd said
repeatedly. Her memory might not be as good as Mulder's, but
even she felt fairly confident that she could quote his
statements with a high degree of accuracy.

"Just checking to see if we missed anything," Mulder said.
"Listen to what we missed." He took his finger off the pause,
and Emin's rushing voice picked up again: <Depends on who sees
it first. Only mine, not yours. Only yours, not mine. Depends
on who sees 'em first. In a way I'm like you, or you're like me.
Everything's perspective, man. The lights in the sky, you, me,
Agent Scully, the aliens. Depends on who sees 'em first! I'm
telling you, but you're not getting it -- they're *all* telling
the truth!>

"Mulder, the guy was nuts! He probably OD'd, and his family got
the coroner's office to look the other way, I mean, it's a small
town."

"Then we really do need that autopsy, Scully. Listen --" There
was a ringing on the tape. "My cell phone," Mulder whispered.
"Remember?" Then Mulder's voice on the tape saying, <Mulder. --
Yeah -- got it. Hang on a sec.>

<Hey, Callahan.>

"*Callahan?*"

"His cat," Mulder whispered.

"Cat? What cat? I didn't see any cat."

Mulder put his finger to his lips.

<How'ya doin' bud. Callahan, help me out here, buddy. How do I
explain to these nice people that what they're looking for is
something walks through realities like they walk through rooms of
a house? I tell 'em that, they'll *know* I'm nuts, huh? The FBI
isn't ready for shit like that, huh, Callahan? Oh, you *like*
that, don't you, cat?>

Scully stared at Mulder blankly. "Cat?" she said. "There was no
cat, Mulder. And how did that get on the tape? I never heard
him say that."

"Me neither. We went over by the door, remember? To take the
call from Skinner. Emin was still back with the tape, and the
tape was still running."

"And the door was *closed,* Mulder! Where'd the damn cat come
from?"

Mulder shrugged. He had that happy gleam in his eye. "Beats me.
But we've got to get that body exhumed, and I want to go find the
little girl on the swing, and then --"

Scully groaned, deeply. "Okay, Mulder. We'll go look for
nursery rhyme girl, and question her about aliens from the fourth
dimension." Mulder grinned. Happy. "Fourth dimension my ass,"
Scully muttered as she turned away.

"I heard that."

****************************

It was late. The light through the high windows was silvery,
making the whole room, with all its weird photos, look a little
unreal. Like something in a movie. Mulder was still engrossed
in his X-file, and Scully sat watching him, feeling melancholy.
Mulder, obsessive as he was, could only focus on one thing at a
time -- she knew that. But Scully was hungry. And she was
tired. She didn't feel ready for fourth dimensional beings this
evening. What she really wanted was to go to someone's
apartment, she didn't care which, as long as they could pick up
some Thai food on the way. As long as she got to hold him, feel
his arms around her, make love, and lay awake talking after.

She sighed deeply. Took off her glasses, and rubbed her eyes.

"Tired?" Mulder asked, without looking up. He could go on like
this for hours yet, dredging through layers of speculations and
rumors and forgotten files, looking for a handle.

Scully paddled her chair over next to his, and leaned over the
computer screen with him. Pretending interest, at the same time
she slipped off one shoe, and wiggled her stockinged toe up
inside the hem of his trousers. He flashed her a hot grin.
Bumped his knee against hers and glanced pointedly at the tiny
word 'Privacy' tacked to the cluttered wall. "Look at this," he
said in a normal voice, and pointed out a date on the screen.

"Mmm," she answered, and scooted away again. She opened her
laptop, and stared at the silvery blue light.

"Personal note:" she typed, and then stopped. Her hands poised
over the keyboard, without touching the keys.

Mulder felt an uncomfortable prickle at the back of his neck.
"You know," he said suddenly, "I keep feeling like someone's
watching us. I can't shake it." His eyes searched around the
room, flicking nervously.

He looks worried, doesn't he? Sexy in the half light. He forgot
to shave this morning, but I'm sure you noticed that already.

"Who?" Scully asked, in a bored voice.

"I'm not sure. Can't you feel it?"

"You're paranoid, Mulder."

Scully stared at her laptop again -- at its silvery, empty
screen. She looked around the silver-lit, artistically shadowed
room. Hesitated. Then she pushed the laptop away.

She dug through one of Mulder's drawers, and fished out one of
his yellow pads. Picking up a pen and cupping her hand over the
words as she used to do in school, Scully began to write.

Mulder stopped and looked at her. He frowned. "What are you
doing?" he asked.

"If I need to, I can burn it," she said resignedly.

--------------------
Finis . . . . . .the film fades to silver . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . the rest is static . . . . .