By Char Chaffin
char@chaffin.com
 

MSR, Vignette, Post-ep for "Dead Alive"
Rating: R for Adult situations
Disclaimer:  Originals are his, clones are mine!

Author's Note:  I usually do not write post-ep.  I have only written
a few in the years since I started writing.  But Dead Alive, while a
wonderful ep, just didn't go quite as far as I needed it to...

THANKS TO:  My wonderful listmates at IWTB, who inspire me daily and
egg me on when I need to be egged, and generally care an awful lot.
Also to my writing partner and fellow Sis Tess, just because...

Summary:  Some people crave the "wild side of life."  Scully just
wants normal...
 

"Approaching Normal"
 

When she awoke in the morning he wasn't there beside her and she
panicked for about six seconds, until she heard the water running in
her bathroom.  She relaxed against the rumpled pillows and listened
to the normal sounds, of water gurgling down the drain and the
familiar clatter of something metallic against something made of
porcelain.

Shaving - he was shaving.  Normal, blessedly normal.

Scully smiled.

Rising slowly from the bed she made her silent way across the room
and stood in the doorway; at this angle he could not see her while he
faced the mirror.  Which was best, she thought - she didn't want
Mulder to think she was hovering - which was exactly what she was
doing.  She couldn't help herself.  A lot had happened in a week,
more than the usual week for a very pregnant woman who spent half her
time on the toilet and the other half trolling for anyone who could
give a decent back massage.  Surprisingly it had been Doggett who'd
proven himself to be more than adept, and willing as well to perform
the small but thoughtful service.  She supposed Mulder could take
over as soon as he regained some of his upper-body strength.

Scully looked forward to yet another return to normalcy, for Mulder
had given her more than a few backrubs in the past...

She watched him now as he raised the razor and scraped thick foam
from his neck.  His hand was decently steady and since she hadn't
heard him curse out loud yet she could assume he hadn't cut himself.
Yet.  Scully leaned her head against the door and remembered the last
time she'd watched him shave.  Another normal morning for them; an
innocently wonderful morning that'd had no inkling of what lay ahead
in their world, just seven short days away.  Perhaps if she'd known
she would have grabbed onto him, dressed in nothing but a small pink
towel, and spirited him away on the first plane flying to the end of
someplace on earth.  They would have surprised the hell out of the
flight attendants, especially Mulder who had looked mighty tasty
draped in her towel and nothing else.

About as tasty as he looked right this moment draped in as small a
towel - another pink one.  With little seashells all over it.  Gad,
who'd given her such a hideous towel?  Scully shook her head in
bemusement, wondering how on earth she could stand there dwelling on
her stupid towels when Mulder was within a hands' reach mostly naked
and still damp from the shower...  pregnancy brain-drain, no doubt.

Scully wanted to reach out a hand to touch his smooth back,
mirroring almost exactly that last morning of normal peace so many
months ago.  That morning one of her small hands had touched him,
tracing the well-developed muscles of his back and trailing down the
curve of his spine.  One seeking index finger on a trek to heaven,
recalling the flesh through tactile touch.  Remembering the night
before when that same slope of muscle had bunched under her hand as
he'd moved above her, deeply within her.  Head thrown back - dark
flush on his cheeks and a groan building in his throat...

Maybe it was a normal climax for anyone else - but for her, watching
Mulder in the throes of his passion was nothing short of amazing.
She'd wanted to see it again that next morning, so she'd sent that
finger gliding over his shoulders and he'd turned to her with a big
grin showing through streaks of foam still on his face, and had
pinned her up against the bathroom wall and had rubbed his foamy
cheeks all over her neck and down her breasts.  Until he'd reached
her nipples, bared to the morning light - soft and sweet and
demanding to be tasted.

And so he had, on his knees before her, wearing a silly pink towel
that slipped easily off his narrow hips as if it had known how
useless it had become in the grander scheme of things.  Mulder had
knelt before her with his hands touching her and his lips moving over
each rosy point gently, so gently... so normal.  Just so damned
normal... at last, something in her life that wasn't anything less
than wonderful and what every other woman in a relationship took for
complete granted.

She had sighed and hummed and moaned at each new kiss; Mulder had
started with a faceful of foam and by the time he'd reached the needy
place between her thighs all the foam had dried itself on her skin.
On the floor of her bathroom Scully had gotten her wish, to once
again send the man she loved into a frenzy of need - and in doing so
reached her own perfect climax.

Had she known that would be the last time she would have done
everything in her power to hold onto those gloriously normal feelings
for as long as she could... for nothing in her life had been regular
again - nothing.

Especially not the return of her partner and lover - her Mulder.

Scully stood in the doorway of her bathroom watching the man she
adored shaving and the sheer miracle of the moment struck her hard.
A week ago he'd been buried in the hard, cold ground.  Buried.  Not
quite dead, it would seem - not exactly alive.  That he had not only
returned to her, alive and warm and with that same lovely twinkle in
his eyes... but he had spent the night in her bed, sleeping -

Sleeping... perhaps the most normal act of all.  Curled into her
body, hands cupping her belly and warming the life within that he'd
helped to create - their child had not kicked her once all night.
Perhaps knowing that Daddy was near...

Scully liked to think so.

Mulder had even snored.  The sound had awoken her in the middle of
the night - and when she had finally identified the source and what
it represented, she'd cried happy tears into her pillow.

Approaching normal, minute upon minute and with every reunited hour
together.

Scully rubbed a hand over the cotton covering her huge belly,
watching Mulder finish shaving.  He carefully rinsed out the razor
and laid it on the rim of the sink, then bent over to rinse his face -
and the pink towel with the little seashells all over it slipped and
fell to the floor.  And Scully reached out a finger to trace down his
back, wanting nothing more than for him to turn around and press
himself against her in a 'Good Morning' sort of way...  In her
advanced state of pregnancy it was really all she needed to feel
balanced, loved, treasured and cherished.  All she needed to feel
normal...

Mulder turned when he felt her touch him, and it was as if months of
horror and pain and loneliness had melted away, for both of them.  He
backed her up against the bathroom wall and his smile warmed her from
the inside out as his mouth touched hers gently, so gently... His
face was scarred down each cheek and his skin was pale from months
spent in the blinding darkness of an unimaginable Hell... Some of his
muscles were weak from disuse and he trembled a little on his feet.
There were gray hairs mixed in with the dark silky strands on his
head, and dark smudges ringed each of his beautiful hazel eyes... but
he stood tall before her and his arms were as loving and comforting
as they'd always been, and the desire spiraling through his body as
he pressed against her was familiar and yet new.

He parted the lapels of her baggy sleepshirt and his still-chapped
lips moved over each rosy nipple, now beginning to ache with the
first stages of lactose production; slowly and carefully Mulder
dropped to his knees before her, and rested his scarred cheek against
his child.  Scully's arms came about his shoulders and she held his
head as he communed silently with their baby, and with her.  Less
than he needed and as much as he could handle, until his body fully
healed - but that was just fine with her.  She leaned her cheek on
his head and sighed into his hair.

Getting closer and closer... approaching normal.

End

Thanks for reading!  If you like what you read I would love to hear
from you... char@chaffin.com

Please visit my web site, at http://char,chaffin.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Scully..."
"Yes?"
"Marry Me..."

"Yes."

Chapter Fourteen
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
'Believe the Words...'
http://char.chaffin.com