By Jess
snarkypup@mindspring.com
 

Date: Wed, 8 Dec 1999
DISCLAIMER: Not really
DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT: Anywhere, just let me know.
SPOILER WARNING: Field Where I was a Dork, that's about it. Can you tell I
didn't like that episode?
RATING: Oooo, NC-17 or else Darla'd come get me.
CONTENT WARNING: Um... soft satin sheets of smut.
CLASSIFICATION: Gee, MSR?
SUMMARY: On the day of his 38th birthday, Mulder decides to reveal the truth
to Scully and see where it gets him... (where do you think?) This is
pre-this whole season, written during the hiatus. Diana isn't dead, in other
words.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: Ok... how to explain this... I left Amazon.com, got a
hotmail account, couldn't get this list because of it, but continued to get
XFC and this was originally posted there, so a lot of you will have already
seen it. You could read it again, though, right? Anyway, now I have a
permanent account at mindspring: snarkypup@mindspring.com. The hotmail
account still works for those of you used to it. Don't panic.  And I now
have my own site, too! It's all so exciting, isn't it?

Visit my site for all my fiction, lovingly archived by Galia:
http://galias.webprovider.com/jess/jess.htm
Then visit Galia's site for more great fiction!
http://galias.webprovider.com/visions.html

This is a companion piece to "Anniversary", at least in my own head. Really,
they are totally unrelated. You can read that one at my site (I love saying
that). All the stuff I've posted since being off this list will eventually
be resposted here, because essentially, I'm a feedback whore.

Email me, Snarkypup@mindspring.com needs to be broken-in.
 

Birthday

Fox Mulder awoke on the morning of his thirty-eighth birthday to an
unseasonably warm fall morning. After his shower, he stood in front of the
mirror in his bathroom and examined his body with a critical eye. This had
become a birthday ritual. He liked to know the passage of time across his
skin, his muscles, his bones. He was, if truth be told, obsessed with time.
Not because he feared aging, so much, but because the closure of each year
marked another failure on his part to find his sister and he wanted to know
if his body would hold out. To stay strong, to be young and vigorous, was as
necessary to her survival as keeping abreast of the complicated system of
lies perpetrated by the syndicate.

This morning, he cataloged his defeats and his victories. He was, he noted,
fatter. No longer youthfully lithe, his muscles had grown larger, less
defined. Bulky even. Not in a bad way, he thought. It wasn't time to whip
out the William Shatner middle-aged-man girdle yet. He even looked, perhaps,
more manly this way. Tougher, like a longshoreman instead of a dancer.

His face, ever the truest sign of age, showed a few more lines than last
year's inventory. His hair was still dark and thick and his chin didn't
appear to be retreating any further. It irked him to know that his nose
would continue to grow throughout his life, but there was little he could do
to rectify that. Not about to break out the tape measure and start counting
the millimeters, he simply resigned himself to the fact that it must be, by
the cruel nature of biology, bigger. If only, he thought, certain other
appendages worked the same way.

As he dressed, putting on one of his innumerable pairs of black boxers and
his favorite gray dress slacks, he pondered whether he would actually be
offended if Scully forgot this year. Would she get him a present? And if she
didn't, would he really be able to call her on it, considering he remembered
her birthday each year and yet had decided for the initial four years of
their partnership that it would be too meaningful to say anything about it?

The doorbell rang and he knew immediately who it was. No one else would stop
by at seven on a Wednesday morning.

He considered answering the door shirtless, but decided that it probably
wouldn't give her a thrill, but more likely make her uncomfortable. Sliding
on a white undershirt, he buttoned his pants and opened the door to her.

"Good morning," she said, handing him coffee and a brown paper bag that
probably contained a bagel. "You're late."

He knew it. It was no real shock to either of them, so he let it pass.

"Does it have cream cheese?" he asked, peering into the bag.

"It does," she affirmed, sipping her own coffee.

When he wandered back into the bedroom to finish dressing, she followed him,
leaning on his doorjamb and blowing across the top of her drink. The
movement of her mouth was provocative precisely because she wasn't aware of
it, he thought. Scully was a mostly unconscious flirt.

He picked out a white dress shirt and was surprised to feel her approach.
Standing beside him, she examined his tie rack and pulled something out of
the jumble.

"I like this one," she said. "Turn around."

She flipped his collar up and slid the silk around his neck. Being so close
to her seemed almost like a gift in and of itself, until he pondered the
nature of that gift and his total inability to enjoy it properly. She tied
the tie and stepped back, cocking her head to look him over.

"There," she said. "No martians, no fish. you look professional."

"Don't I always, Scully?"

She smiled and headed back into the living room, content to let him finish
on his own.
 

All day he wondered, would she? Would she remember? And why did it matter so
much if she did, or didn't? The case work was dry, as always, a series of
interviews with family members and crazed murderers that were in reality
nothing like the suave serial killers of movies, but more like that nut next
door everyone tries to avoid talking to. She stayed close to him, following
him around like a lonely puppy until he was tempted to tell her to back off
if only to put them back on an equal footing. By the time they collapsed in
the basement office, Mulder felt it wouldn't entirely matter if no one
remembered his birthday, when there was so damn much evil in the world. It
was a silly thing, really, to wish to celebrate your own birth. Like wanting
someone to tell you how nice you look in new clothes. Vain. Foolish.
Necessary.

She sighed loudly and began rustling around in her desk at about five
o'clock. Apparently, the Giving hour.

"I got you something," she said. "For your natal anniversary."

She looked like she might giggle. He smiled.

"I thought you would have forgotten."

"Oh for heaven's sake," she said. "I'm a Scully. Dates are my life."

Reaching out from as far away as possible, she handed him a small package,
clearly a book. He wanted to tell her to come closer, that a present from
her was about the most wonderful thing he could imagine, but she had already
stepped even further back.

"I found it," she said nervously, as he tore off the paper like a child, "in
a used book store. It was such a coincidence."

"Letters from the Civil War," he read aloud, feeling something hammer in his
chest.

"I marked the page," she said softly. And then she was picking up her coat,
slinging it over her arm, and high-tailing it out the door before he could
do more than shout "Scully" and watch the door close in his face. He flipped
open the book to her marker, half a Post-it note, and his heart sank.

The letter was, of course, from Sullivan Biddle to Sarah Kavanaugh. That was
no surprise. Pictures he had never seen before faced each other on the title
page to the letter. Pictures of a man and woman he had, in truth, nearly
forgotten. So much had happened in the intervening three years that he no
longer mourned these people he hadn't really known. It was a love letter,
written in the flowery prose of the period, sweet and heavy-going. Less than
half a page into it, he knew he was fool.

She had bought this for him, knowing how he had felt at the time. How it
must have hurt to see those photos, to read this letter. He could hardly
believe she had actually bought the damn thing, wrapped it, and carried it
with her today knowing she would give it to him and then run.

Closing the book and flinging it into the bottom of his desk drawer, he
remembered sitting in the interrogation room. It had been so strange to him,
that this woman who looked so familiar should not remember him in her
conscious mind. And she had hit the nail on the head, hadn't she? If they
had chosen these lives, then they had gone into it knowing that at least in
this round, they would not be together. Not in any way. And if that was
true, then he had knowingly chosen someone else. At the time, he thought he
knew who it was and it had gnawed at him, hurt him. Now, perhaps, he could
accept another choice.

But that was the rub. How do you tell the one woman you love more than
anything in the world that you love her, when the words themselves have had
no effect? All his overtures, all his efforts to explain to her had come
during a time when he wasn't truly free to act. But now? How free was he?

He knew what it was. He was her partner. Not all partners would go halfway
around the world for each other, but many would. That, in and of itself, was
not a declaration of romantic love. And the near-kiss, well, that was the
movement of a desperate man. No one knew that better than he did and he saw
no reason to react to his own desperation. Especially under the
circumstances.

Groaning, Mulder put his head down on the desk and stared at the door. He
needed something special. Better than two hours of wrapping his arms around
her in a public park on a starry night. Something that she couldn't mistake
for anything other than a full-out seduction. And he needed help.
 

In the end, it was Frohike who took him aside.

"Let me just close the door," he said. "I don't think you want the others to
hear what I'm going to say."

Mulder was restless. He wanted to get on with things. He felt as if the last
six years had suddenly narrowed into a tiny point on the horizon and he had
to get there, now.

"What is it, Melvin?"

The little man winced, but held firm.

"You want to seduce Scully," he said.

"Yes, damn it. What have I been saying for the last half hour?"

"Why now?" Frohike asked, his voice cautious.

Mulder shrugged, anxious to move on.

"The time has come," he said. "I'm ready."

"You know," Frohike said, sighing, "I've been in love with her for years."

"I know that," Mulder said. "I'm sorry. I can't consider that."

"I don't expect you to. But you see, I'm protective of her. She is. the most
beautiful, brilliant, loving, fierce, gentle, upright and honorable woman I
have ever known. I know that I'm an ugly man, Mulder. And you. are not. I
think that's your advantage, because I can't imagine that she prefers your
brand of angsty shit to my gentle adoration."

Mulder rolled his eyes, dismissing it. He had not come there to be
criticized.

"I know you're listening, so don't pretend you aren't," Frohike added. "You
cannot seduce Agent Scully."

"What are you talking about?" Mulder said. "She's a woman. She'll respond to
seduction."

"You can't seduce someone who already loves you body and soul, Mulder. And
you don't need to. Nor does she need you to. There is only one way you can
prove to her that you love her."

"Oh really? What's that?"

Body and soul? His heart was pounding and he barely heard the next few words
from the small man in the corner, pouring out the meaning of his own life.

"Tell her the truth."

For a moment he simply sat there, staring at Frohike's startling little
black cap.

"I have always told Agent Scully the truth," he said slowly.

"Yes," Frohike countered. "You have always told Agent Scully the truth. It's
Dana Scully you've been lying to."

And suddenly Mulder's world has zeroed in on this one fact: Frohike knew.

"What are you talking about?" he said icily.

"You stood here, in this office, and ridiculed her for, should I quote you
here, Mulder? For 'making it personal' and yet she was talking to you about
the most personal aspect of your life. And you let her talk, you let her
suffer without telling her the truth about what your relationship with Diana
really entailed."

"I." he began, but slumped, defeated. "How could I tell her, Frohike? How
the hell could I tell her?"

"How could you not?"

"She'd hate me."

Frohike smiled. "I would never have forgiven you for the remark, you know. I
still haven't, entirely. She has. She loves you and will forgive you, but
she will not forgive you if she finds out six months from now after you have
plied her with flowers and wine. And she will find out, Mulder. It's
inevitable."

"You'd tell her," he said, dully.

"I might," Frohike said, sitting up. "If I thought you wouldn't. She
deserves the truth. All of it."

"You don't know all of it."

"But she should, Mulder."

"Oh God," Mulder sighed, lowering his head to his knees. "I can't tell her,
Frohike. I can't. She'll hate me."

"Maybe. She will certainly lose some respect for you. But Mulder, you forget
why she loves you in the first place."

And the little man had come to stand beside him, gently patting his
shoulder.

"Why's that?" Mulder asked, feeling numb.

"Because you are a good man. As someone once said, 'a redwood among
sprouts.'"

"Who said that?" Mulder sat up, smiling a bit at his friend.

Frohike simply raised an eyebrow and opened the door.
 

In the car, Mulder decided that Frohike had indeed been right. There was
only one way to prove his love to her. Ugly, brutal and terrifying, but
right.

Of course, by the time he had reached her apartment, and was standing in her
doorway looking down at her in her grungy little sweatpants and too-tight
t-shirt, he had already half convinced himself that there must be a simpler
way. Maybe he could write her a letter? An email? Leave a message on her
machine?

But of course, that wasn't how it would work, either.

She poured him a glass of ice water and eyed him as if he were possibly
explosive.

"What's going on, Mulder? You looked peeked."

"Scully," he said, feeling impulsive and odd, "go put on a nice dress. I'm
taking you out to dinner."

He wasn't abandoning his pledge to Frohike, he rationalized, he was merely
combining the two schemes. First, he would seduce her. Then he would tell
her the truth.

"Excuse me?" she said. "Why?"

It was so Scully. He made a move, she countered with a withdrawal.

"Because," he said patiently, but without inspiration. "Because I want to.
How the hell often do you go out to dinner that you can turn it down? Hmmm?"

She sighed, but he saw her soften.

"It's your birthday, Mulder. Is this what you want?"

"It is, Scully."

Nodding, she disappeared into the bedroom. He could see her pulling the
shirt over her head as she rounded the door frame and his mouth went dry.
What was he doing? Why couldn't life come with some sort of map, some
explanation of his role? What if she didn't understand, didn't forgive him?
He felt physically sick and wondered if she would notice if he ran into her
bathroom and puked.

She emerged a few minutes later, and she was in fact, wearing a dress. This
shocked him beyond reason, somehow, as if she had come out wearing hot pants
and pasties. It wasn't an elaborate dress, just a dark blue sheath, really,
but it wasn't multiple pieces, it wasn't buttoned, it wasn't anything but
sleek and blue and elegant. Stopping in front of him, she continued
inserting her earrings and turned wordlessly to have him zip her up.

Her skin was the exact color of fine linen paper, except for the bar of navy
satin from her bra. He couldn't resist, and ran one lazy finger up her bare
spine. She paused and stood completely still, as if she were debating a
sudden burst of speed. The temptation to wrap his arms around her and start
kissing her neck nearly undid him, but instead he let shaking fingers pull
the little metal tab until she was closed off from him again.

"Where are we going?" she asked, and sounded as if she needed to clear her
throat.

"I don't know," he admitted. "I'm open to suggestions."

Each line seemed weighted with meaning, though he knew she didn't understand
or even suspect.

"Pierre's?" she asked, turning to face him. She looked stunning, without
even trying. He nodded and traced the line of her jaw with his finger. She
was impossible to ignore any longer. It had to be tonight or he would die.
"Mulder?" she whispered. "Is something going on? What do you need to tell
me?"

She was spooky, eerie and amazing to him. He leaned down and kissed her
forehead, rubbing against her, absorbing her scent.

"I do want to talk to you, but I want to eat first."

"Ok," she sighed, accepting his affection but not exactly returning it. She
was wary. "Did you like your present?"

It took him a moment to realize what she meant. "I did," he said. "I really
appreciate you getting it for me. But."

"But what?"

"But I don't. I mean, I never think about her anymore. I mean."

She shushed him with her hand on his. "I just thought it would interest
you."

He nodded. "I'm only interested in one thing right now."

She blushed and looked down.

"Food," he whispered and she smiled at him.
 

end 1 of 3

TITLE: Birthday (2/3)
AUTHOR: Jess
EMAIL ADDRESS: snarkypup@hotmail.com

After dinner, they sat in the warm circle of candle light and talked about
nothing in the way that slightly tipsy people do. Their meals sat primly in
the bowels of tinfoil swans, waiting for the journey home, but Mulder was
reluctant. Home meant no more watching the flame shift in Scully's eyes or
listening to her gentle laughter when he reminded her of buck-toothed
vampire sheriffs or a certain shorts-wearing entomologist.

"Mulder," she said, leaning forward and displaying more than a little
cleavage. She was flirting openly now, fingering her wine glass like a
lover's lips. "What's next? Home again, home again, jiggidy jig?"

"I suppose so," he said sadly.

She reached across the table and took his hand in hers. "You know no matter
what you tell me, I will still be your friend," she said.

"Promise?" he asked wistfully.

She seemed to sober up then, wondering what it could be, what would require
her commitment. "Mulder," her voice was low, intimate. "Why bring me out
tonight? Are you trying to butter me up?"

He shook his head. "I'm trying to seduce you, Scully. Is it working?"

Her eyes widened and she sat back. "Seduce me? But. I thought you wanted to
talk to me about something, Mulder and whatever it is, you aren't anxious to
do it."

"You're right, as always," he said. "Let's go home. We'll worry about the
seduction part later, ok?"

She nodded, but her hand had withdrawn from his. "Will I still want you to
seduce me?" she asked and he realized the confession inherent in that
question.

"God, I hope so," he said honestly, and led her out to his car.
 

At her apartment, they stood awkwardly just inside the door. The car ride
had been nearly unbearable, filled with silence and the anticipation of the
unpleasant. Now he didn't know what to do with his anxious hands or for that
matter, with his anxious mind. She motioned to the couch and moved around to
perch on one end like a bird.

He settled, tossing his coat onto a chair though he knew it drove her
insane.

"So tell me," she said, voice steady and warm. "You're gay, right?"

He smiled and shook his head. "I'd hardly be trying to seduce you if that
were true."

"I don't know. maybe you want to get ahead at the bureau."

They both smiled and he plunged in and prepared to drown.

"I was married."

Her eyebrows went up a bit and she nodded. "To Diana. I thought you might
have been. I hoped you hadn't, but. "

He felt as if he had been kicked. She didn't understand, didn't understand.
it ran though his head like water.

"Scully, you don't get it."

"Help me get it," she said gently. He nodded and began.

"We married just before she went to Europe. I. I loved her desperately. I
was so sure she could help me, give me answers to questions I had about
myself. about my work. when she left I was devastated. So devastated, that
when I asked for a divorce and she said she wasn't ready, I didn't press the
issue."

Scully's face paled a bit and she said softly "How long?"

He closed his eyes. "Technically?"

"Yes," she said.

"We still are. Technically."
 

He had never seen her so devastated. She sat against the wall, opposite him,
her face patchy. She hadn't said a word to him since he had told her he was
still married, but the silence told him exactly what she felt.

"Scully," he ventured at last. "I'm so sorry I haven't told you until now."

She looked away, her face dull. Shocked.

"I filed for divorce last month, after the whole hospital thing was cleared
up. It goes through in a week. She's already signed the papers."

Nodding, she slid a bit further, as if reacting to some sort of internal
aftershocks.

"You were trying to seduce me," she said at last. "And you were still
fucking married."

"For a week," he whispered gently. "She's signed, Scully. It just has to go
through the court."

She shook her head. "Last summer," she said. "In the hallway. What the fuck
was that?"

He closed his eyes. "Need, Scully. Pure and simple. I wasn't thinking. I
just knew I needed you to stay."

"Oh, and so you figured that if I slept with you, I would?"

"No," he told her. "I wasn't thinking that far ahead. You were hurting, I
love you, I wanted you to feel better."

"Love," she spat, her face twisting. "You know nothing about love. Lovers
are honest with one another."

Maybe in her world, he thought.

"I never lied, Scully. I just didn't tell you. What the hell was I supposed
to do? When was I going to reveal this bit of information? At the beginning,
where I wasn't sure I could trust you? And then once I'd fallen in love with
you, what then? Oh hey, Scully, I know we've been together as partners for a
year and I haven't mentioned this, but by the fucking way."

She stared at him.

"You've been in love with me for five years?"

"Of course I have. What did you think?"

Looking away again, she shrugged. "I thought you loved me, but I didn't
think. I mean, you never. Jesus. That's why you never tried anything, isn't
it? Why we never tried to repeat that kiss. why when Eddie tried to seduce
me, you didn't follow suit, even when you knew. this explains so many
things." She was quiet for a moment, thinking. He ached for her, wishing for
once that their connection ran deeper, showed her the erratic pounding of
his own heart. Then she spoke, and her voice was dripping with venom. "You
should have told me when she first arrived, and you know it. God, Mulder,
what a fucking selfish thing to do."

"I know," he said. What else was there to say? He knew. He had always known.
"If it makes you feel any better." he began.

"It won't," she said.

"It might," he amended. "I have asked her for that divorce three times since
I met you."

"Gee, only three?"

"It's complicated," he said slowly. "I did some things that. hurt her.
Christ, she cried, Scully. You know how I am."

"No," she said. "I don't think I do. Elaborate."

"Don't. You do know me. You have from the moment we met. This doesn't change
that, only shakes it a bit. She was upset. She cried. She said she had
always loved me and that I was giving up on her. I couldn't stand that
accusation, Scully. I never want to be accused of giving up on anyone." He
stopped. She was glaring at him.

"You're still lying to me."

"What?" he asked, genuinely confused.

"Oh, 'she cried'. I don't buy a word of it, Mulder. I've cried." She saw him
wince and moved deliberately on. "I've cried and it didn't shake you."

"Yes it did," he said, suddenly fierce. "Every damn time. Don't ever accuse
me of not caring about you, Scully, because you know it isn't true. I may
not be your ideal man, I may even be a lying sack of shit, but I have never
stopped caring about you, from day one. Before I loved you."

She nodded and leaned back again. "Fine. You care. Point taken. But you are
lying about Diana. Tell me the fucking truth, Mulder. Not bits and pieces of
it. Tell me the truth with a capital 't'. Tell me everything."

"I don't want to hurt you more, Scully," he whispered.

"Try me," she said coldly. "I'm so fucking resilient, you wouldn't even
believe it. I can hardly believe it myself."

"Fine." He was annoyed now, though he knew it wasn't his place. "The first
time I asked her for a divorce after I met you. was during your abduction."
She looked up, head cocked, paying attention. He felt gratified he could
still shock her in a good way. "Yes, you heard me, Scully. During. Not
after. I couldn't live with the idea that you might have been killed or hurt
for me. I didn't do it because I loved you. I hadn't realized that yet. I
did it because I felt there was no way she deserved to be married to someone
as reckless and foolish as myself. She reassured me that she would be coming
back to the US soon and that if I was patient. anyway, you came back to me
and I was consumed with guilt over my part in your abduction. I didn't ask
her again for two years. Why bother? She kept saying she was coming back and
you. you were so far out of my reach I could never see you clearly. I
wouldn't have asked you to marry me even if I had been free to do it."

"That's once," she said. "Keep going."

"Ok," he leaned back, filled with a growing feeling of horror. "I asked her
again when you were sick."

"Oh God, Mulder, why?" she asked. "You didn't think we.?"

"That's exactly what I thought. I thought if you were going to die, I would
at least be with you."

"You were with me," she said, her voice gentle for the first time since he
had told her of his commitment.

"That's not what I meant, and you know it," he said. "Anyway. she said." He
realized he was sweating, profusely, as a slow, warm droplet ran down the
side of his body to pool at his waist.

"She said?" She was pale, clearly understanding that he was about to say
something devastating.

"She said she was working, undercover, with the men who had taken you, who
had made you sick."

Raising one hand to her mouth, Scully's face seemed to turn a cool shade of
gray and then red, as if she were blushing.

"She blackmailed you."

"Yes," he said softly. "Though I didn't see it that way at the time. She
said the only reason you were alive at all was that you were my partner and
I was her husband. She said if we were to sever our ties. she could no
longer protect me. or you."

"When in reality she was using you to gather information on me, on the
X-Files, on everything."

"Yes," he admitted. "Yes, I believe that now."

Her eyes were closed, her face flushed. "This is unbelievable," she said
slowly. "You are such a fucking idiot, sometimes, Mulder, it just astounds
me."

He was immediately stung, deeply. She had never said anything like that
about him, especially not to him, but she must have thought it a thousand
times. Standing, he prepared to go.

She stopped him with her voice.

"And the third?"

"The what?" he asked, picking up his jacket anyway.

"The third time you asked. When was that?"

He sat back down, looking at her face. Her bright cheeks and damp lashes
exaggerated her natural paleness, her almost translucent skin. He sighed.

"Last summer."

"When?" she said, and opened her eyes. He had a sense that he must get this
right, or he would lose his chance. It astonished him to know that he had a
chance at all.

"Before or after, you mean?"

She nodded.

"Before, Scully. Before Gibson, before the Antarctic, before your
accusations in front of the gunmen. Before I knew she was evil, before I
believed. I only knew that I had waited long enough for you, and I couldn't
see any reason to wait another day."

Her eyes closed again and she slumped against the wall.

"So." she said, using her best autopsy summation voice, "you just thought
you'd come on over, take me out to dinner, tell me you're married after six
years of not telling me, and then we'd what. fall into bed and fuck like
rabbits? Is that it, Mulder?"

"No," he said softly. "I took you out to dinner." And he realized he didn't
really know why he had. It wasn't like he had really expected her to forgive
him, to allow him to seduce her. no, he did know. It was something so
simple. "I guess I just wanted to make you smile one last time, in case you
decided to hate me. One for the road, so to speak."

Finally, as stiff as a puppet, she rose from the wall she had been resting
against and walked slowly over to the couch to sit next to him.

"I would never hate you, Mulder," she said, but her voice held no
tenderness.

"Never, Scully?" he said bitterly. "You might want to rethink that one. I
mean, I am the lying sack of shit here."

"Yes," she nodded, "that you are. But I always knew you were chicken-shit,
Mulder, about anything emotional, and in the end, that's what this comes
down to, isn't it?"

He stared at the shiny caps of his shoes, wishing it were possible to simply
fold himself in half and sink into his own body.

"And it's about trust," she continued. "But then, you've never trusted me,
not really."

"What are you talking about?" he asked, frustrated, "I have always trusted
you. More than anyone."

"More than Diana?"

He knew, without even really examining them, that while he had trusted
Diana, he had loved only Scully. And with love, came something essential to
trust. Honesty.

"Yes," he said.

"I don't believe you," she answered, arms crossed.

"I never talked to Diana about Samantha, I never sat in a hospital room and
held her hand, not even after Gibson, when we were still married, Scully.
She was my wife and I left her in the hospital to find you. I never tried to
sell my soul to Cancer Man for her."

"You what?"

He was quiet. Hadn't he mentioned that one? He was sure he had.

"He offered me a deal to save you, when you were sick."

"The deal you mentioned not taking," she said slowly. "When you were on your
way to the hearing."

"Yes. I have never loved her the way I love you. I never went to Antarctica
to find her."

She dismissed him. "You'd go to Antarctica for Skinner."

"Look," he said, exasperated and floored by the depth of her sense of
betrayal. "I love you. I always have. It's up to you to believe me. There is
nothing more I can do if you don't."

Sitting back, she tossed her hair from her damp face and stared at the
ceiling.

He was halfway to the door before she spoke, her voice as soft as
fingertips.

"I believe you."

end 2 of 3

TITLE: Birthday (3/3)
AUTHOR: Jess
EMAIL ADDRESS: snarkypup@mindspring.com

He found himself sitting back on her couch, without really knowing how he
had gotten there, holding her face in his hands and trying to will her into
feeling his wild affection.

"Do you know why I can forgive you?" she was whispering, and he was
fascinated by her mouth.

"No," he said. "Tell me." Anything to keep her from sitting there silently.
Anything.

"Because." she said. "Because you are a good man."

"A redwood among sprouts," he said softly and she quirked an eyebrow at him,
wondering.

"Yes, that's you. I mean, any other man in the universe would have started
thinking with his dick about four and a half years ago."

"You're so crude when you're angry," he told her, filled with adoration. She
could have sworn like a trucker and he would still be staring with rapt
attention at her lovely lips.

"I mean it. That's what's saving you now, Mulder."

"That I honored my fucking vows, you mean, even when it felt like I going to
die if I didn't slip through those damn connecting doors and rub the entire
length of my body on you?"

"Exactly. You are honorable. Chicken-shit, brave as hell, loving, cruel,
brilliant and stupid. You are so goddamned human Mulder, it drives me
insane."

He lowered his mouth to hers and missed it by just a centimeter, purposely.
"I've never claimed to be divine, Scully. Except maybe in bed." And then he
nipped her earlobe gently to demonstrate.

"Knock that off," she whispered, though her hands were now on this thighs.
"I'm still pissed as hell."

"Of course you are," he said, nuzzling her neck. "You have every right to
be. I have behaved like a total asshole and it will no doubt take us many
months to get past this. But now that you've started to forgive me a little,
Scully, I can't help but run with it."

She smiled against his hair, he could feel the movement of her muscles. And
then suddenly, for the first time since he had brought her home, she began
to cry.

Immediately, she was pulling away, trying to stifle her sobbing.

"No," he told her firmly. "You won't do this, Scully. You have spent six
years hiding your pain from me and I will not let you do it anymore. Not
now. Not when I have been honest with you."

She nodded, her body jerking up as if she had hiccups, though no sound
issued.

"Let it go," he said, holding her shoulders. He had a terrible temptation to
play Good Will Hunting, and allow himself to believe that this moment could
cure them of all the damage he had done, but he was no teenage boy. Scully
shuddered against him, clutching him and bathing him by rubbing her cheeks
against his own.

And then she wasn't rubbing, she was kissing. Still gasping, she was
pressing an open mouth to his neck, to his cheek, to his ear. An open mouth
and the hot, wet tip of her tongue.

"I love you," she whispered and her voice was frantic, "I love you so much."
And the tears began again. He held her, rocking her, letting her be as needy
as she wanted.

"You know," he said when she had finally settled down and rested with her
face burrowed into his chest. "I wouldn't let us make love tonight, even if
you asked."

She giggled slightly, as if she were drunk. "You want it to be perfect,
right?"

"Yes," he said. "Or at least not so fucking bombastic."

"But you'd like to kiss me. Really kiss me, right? And maybe hold me in your
arms tonight?

It was his turn to smile. "Yes," he said. "That's what I'd like. Exactly."

"For your birthday," she said.

"For my birthday," he affirmed.

She nodded and then stood, taking his hand and waiting for him to rise to
meet her. He couldn't understand, couldn't wrap his head around what this
woman was doing. Why forgive him? Why love him? She said he was a good man.
what could that mean in the context of a six-year lie?

At the door to her bedroom, she stopped.

"You realize now that I never needed your protection, right?"

He nodded, though he realized no such thing and never would.

"Because this is the second time you have lied to me to protect me from the
truth, Mulder."

"I know, Scully," he said.

"But." she trailed off and looked away for a moment, as if trying to find
the right words. When she turned back to him, she was smiling. "I appreciate
the sweetness inherent in that gesture."

It didn't matter that they were still standing in her doorway, fifteen long
feet from her bed. Taking her face in his hands, he cradled her small head
as if she were as delicate as a soap bubble.

He had always expected kissing her to be wonderful, of course. Thinking
about it, alone on his couch, he had visions of how it would be: hot, slick,
sexy, tender. There was something he had not figured in, of course, the way
it always is with reality. What he had not counted on, floored him.

The moment his mouth touched hers, the moment she opened beneath his lips
and he felt her expel one hot breath. he was completely unnerved. A sudden
guilt so fundamental that releasing it seemed to knock him backwards, to
untether his sanity and leave him breathless, flooded through him.

"Mulder?" she whispered, clutching his hands as he started to sink to his
knees. "Mulder, you're shaking."

By then he had reached the proper depth of sublimation, collapsing at her
feet. If her narrow hall had allowed it, he would have prostrated himself,
kissing her feet like the penitent he was.

"I'm sorry," he gasped into her stomach. "I am so fucking sorry."

She was immediately on her knees in front of him, pushing his sobbing face
into the hollow of her neck and shoulder.

"Sshhh," she sighed. "Mulder."

But it was too late. The faade he had built for himself, one of a man who
was justified in his deception, fell in a moment, taking his control with
it. He was reckless, overwhelmed and drowning. Grabbing fistfuls of her
dress, he shook in her arms until the last fragment of his ego had spent
itself on the silk covering her breasts.

"No," she said, as if to a naughty child. "Don't. don't. Sshh."

When he raised his head, pulling up on muscles that seemed to have atrophied
in the last minutes, she was smiling at him, her own face wet again.

"I know," she said. "I understand."

And though that was impossible, he decided to take it for what it was:
truth. He kissed her again, tenderly. She responded with greed, thrusting
her body against his and gripping him by the ears to hold him in place. He
was instantly, totally aroused. Beyond anything he had felt in years, and he
knew then that he was finally free.

"I want to make love to you tonight," she said, giddy. "I know you said we
shouldn't. but."

"Fine," he said, forgetting why they weren't supposed to do anything.

"I want something good to come out of tonight," she continued, heedless.
"Besides all this fucking honesty and self-flagellation. I want to look back
on tonight and know that in the end, it was just about us. No one else ever
entered into it."

Mulder had just emptied himself of all feelings for Diana so thoroughly that
it took him a moment to figure out what she was referring to.

"Scully," he told her seriously, "no one else has entered into it for a damn
long time."

She nodded joyously and stood again, dragging him up with her. He leaned
down to kiss her again, but she was turning. With her back to him, she
lifted her hair and waited. Ah, he thought, and reached up to pull down the
zipper. It was the most sensual thing he had done yet, revealing inch by
slow inch of skin he was now free to touch, to explore. He had a sudden
vision of her, lying naked on her stomach, looking back at him as he entered
her, and he nearly lost control. The reality of the situation was
incomprehensible. How could she be standing there, her naked back turned to
him, about to step out of her dress? Perhaps the apocalypse really was
coming, he thought darkly, as she stepped forward two inches and pushed the
silk off each shoulder to let it slither down her legs.

And then there she was. Her back still to him, her skin slightly pink from
anticipation, in a deep blue satin bra and matching shining underwear. Trust
Scully to match, he thought, giddy. When she turned slowly around to face
him, still wearing her four-inch heels, and lowered her arm to let her hair
fall softly against her cheeks, he knew he had reached nirvana. Through all
his many lives, his many turns on the cosmic wheel, he had gained in favor
with the gods, and now here he was, finally worthy of this woman. Not as her
son, or her daughter, or her brother, or her subordinate. He was at last her
equal, her companion, her lover.

"Well?" she said, obviously chagrined by his silence, his stillness.

"Oh Scully," he said and closed the distance between them by stepping up and
pulling her into his arms so tightly she gasped.

"I take it you approve," she whispered as he kissed her neck and fondled the
silk covering her ass.

"I do," he told her between mouthfuls of silk-covered breast.

She giggled and sighed at once, working his buttons open as he kissed her.
When she pushed his shirt off his shoulders, he realized he would actually
have to take his hands off her warm skin to become naked himself and the
thought angered him. Why couldn't it be like fantasy, where he was suddenly
nude and so was she?

Stepping back, he pulled viciously at his clothing, venting. She watched
him, her cheeks the color of summer apples, smiling with glistening lips.
"Don't hurt yourself," she chided pleasantly, as if watching her son at
play.

He growled and kicked a shoe hard enough to send it sailing under her bed.
And then he was completely naked, exposed to her, and she was still in her
underwear and heels. He felt vaguely silly and ran his hand through his
hair. He was also sporting the most massive erection of his life. What would
she think of that? Like all men, even the normally-endowed, he was sure she
was sizing him up, comparing him to some secret penis list passed to each
woman at puberty. Ah, she would think, he's a "G", like the color and
clarity ratings on diamonds.

"Oh my," she said instead, and waggled her eyebrows like a Marx brother.
"C'mere, big boy."

He shook his head, then, confidence back in one glorious rush, like blood.

"Take 'em off, Scully. You see, there are rules to this relationship."

She slipped off one heel, shrinking instantly. "Oh yeah?" she said. "And
what are they?"

"Whenever I'm naked, you have to be too."

She nodded, slipping off her other shoe and setting them neatly at the foot
of her dresser. "I see. Does that rule work in reverse?"

He sighed, impatient. "Of course it does, Scully. I'm a guy, for heaven's
sake."

She reached comfortably around and easily undid her bra. Just further proof,
he thought, as if any were needed, that women were vastly superior
creatures.

She lowered it and tossed it to the chair beside her.

Oh good lord, he thought. Her breasts were lovely. Not perfect, or huge,
just. lovely. Soft and pale and full with salmon-pink nipples. They were
slightly erect, little nibs of rosy flesh in the middle of her blushing
areolas. He could just see the soft blue traces of her veins beneath her
skin and the thought of all that blood rushing through her body made him
moan.

She smiled and carefully slid her panties off her legs, stepping out of them
and capturing her poor wilted dress at the same moment. Being Scully, even a
sexual Scully, she hung them all over the chair and then quirked an eyebrow
at him, as if to say: "C'mon!"

He was on her in a second, kissing her deeply and edging her over to the bed
in a tangle of awkward feet. She lay down, her legs dangling over the side,
and looked up at him. Her face became completely serious, then, as he
towered over her. God, but she was small.

"What?" he said.

"Have I mentioned the fact that I'm madly in love with you?" she asked.

He considered for a moment, head to one side. "I do believe it's been said,
yes, but I think it could bear saying one more time."

She nodded, still utterly mirthless.

"I am, you know. God, Mulder, I'm so far gone, if you only knew."

He grinned and lowered himself over her, bending to kiss her breast, just
where her cleavage would begin if she stood up.

"That's reassuring," he said, suddenly serious himself. "Because there was a
time tonight I didn't think I'd ever hear you say it."

She held him there, his face pressed between her bare breasts. They sighed
in unison.

"I'm still hurt," she said, without anger.

"I know," he whispered to her skin.

"Make me feel better," she said then, raising his face to look at her.

"Yes Ma'am," he said and kissed her again.

The skin on her inner thighs was as soft as the skin on her belly, he noted
as he slid down her body to bury his face between her legs. By the time he
reached the proverbial gold mine, spread open and waiting for him like ice
cream melting in the sun, she was shivering despite the warmth of the room.
Her small feet pressed into his sides, rubbing his ribs and tickling him.

He paused, staring at her, wanting her to feel the anticipation as keenly as
he did. This would, of course, change everything. Even more intimate in some
ways than the actual act of sex itself, and yet oddly detached. This was why
it was so often performed by prostitutes, who don't care about distance, and
so rarely by wives, who do. Oral sex. Yes, he thought, watching her body
practically pulse in front of him. Oh my yes.

There was a moment's consideration. Should he delve in with his fingers
first? Test the waters, so to speak? But he decided against it. Better
immerse himself in one quick go, to wet himself completely and damn the
shock.

Sliding just the tip of his tongue up from her vagina to her clit, he waited
for the tang of her sex to hit him.

"You taste," he told her trembling stomach, "just exactly like a Granny
Smith apple."

She moaned and then giggled breathily and he dived back in, covering his
entire face with her before he concentrated on hitting anything in
particular.

Mulder prided himself on being receptive to a woman's needs. Oh sure, he
knew all men prided themselves on it and about 99.9% of them stank. He was
sure he was different, at least tonight. She wiggled against his nose, and
sighed. He worked her faster, pushing at her clit from several angles until
she shuddered and clutched his hair and he knew he had it right. Harder
then, working with the natural gentleness of his tongue. He pondered sliding
in a finger, or two, but thought it might distract her, so he settled on the
flicking of her nerves until suddenly she was completely still. He thought
perhaps he'd been wrong about her reactions until with a long, aching moan,
she came. Shuddering and clenching and pushing, as close to birth itself as
life would allow, her body writhing wonderfully under his hand as he
withdrew.

She looked at him with dewy eyes and blinked, twice.

"That was wonderful," she said softly. "I love you."

And that was it. He thought no man could possibly have waited any longer.
Pushing her gently but firmly up the bed, he lowered himself down on top of
her, his whole body weighing against hers. She nipped his shoulder and
wrapped her still-shaking legs around his lower back.

The moment his penis touched her, felt the dripping wetness of her, he was
gone. A little adjustment of his hips, a readjustment of his upper body to
allow himself the privilege of staring into her lovely eyes as he entered
her, and he was ready. She looked right at him and then gave a quick shove
with her heels.

He had expected some resistance. After all, it had been a long time for her.
But he had forgotten what a good orgasm will do to a woman's body. He slid
into her like sheathing a knife, as if she had been made alongside him, for
him. And she was at once wet and hot and tight and shivering like a distant
star on a cool night.

"Oh Mulder," she sighed in his ear and then bit his earlobe. He felt huge
inside her, swollen and enormous. A man.

"Scully," he whispered back and nuzzled her hair. He was going to have to
move, eventually, he knew. But she felt so warm and safe and perfect and he
was afraid that when he began to shove, she would feel just like any other
woman.

He needn't have worried.

All at once, he felt her contract her muscles. Not just her internal
muscles, but her thighs and buttocks as well. In one smooth movement, she
squeezed from his base to his tip like a wave. It was like nothing he had
ever felt, though he had imagined just that when hearing about strange Asian
sex shows, ping pong balls and such.

"Fuck," he murmured. "What are you doing?" And then he was thrusting. How
could he not be?

"Urinary tract exercises," her warm, steady voice said in his ear. She might
as well have been speaking French. And then she did it again, passing up his
length.

"What?" he groaned, moving faster, listening to her quick breaths in his
ear.

"Urinary tract exercises," she whispered again. "They strengthen your
internal muscles."

"God yes," he said.

"And they feel good to me, too," she said and did it once more.

"Good," he managed to grunt out, before biology took over and he was
pounding into her wildly. She clutched at him, turning her head from side to
side, gasping his name.

She came just a split second before he did, which was just as well as he was
no longer paying any real attention. Fuck sensitivity to her needs, his
orgasm was building in his balls and exploding from every pore on his body
like sweat. Fortunately, she was independent, as always, and able to take
care of herself. Another time, he reasoned, lying with his nose pressed into
the side of her neck, he would go slow and let it build, but tonight.
couldn't he be excused for losing control, just this once?

She was giggling like a little girl, bubbles of laughter that threatened to
push him out of her body with each movement.

"What's so funny?" he muttered, unable to lift his head long enough to look
at her.

"Us," she whispered, her hands trailing over his back and dragging patterns
into the moisture there. "Oh God, Mulder, I just feel so irrationally good."

That gave him a bit of energy, enough to prop himself up and stare down at
her large blue eyes.

"Thank God," he said. "That's all I ever wanted for you."

She nodded, her eyes a bit wet for his liking. He kissed their lids, letting
them know exactly what he thought about it.

"We will put all this behind us," he said firmly.

"We already have," she replied, with equal tenacity.

They lay still for a moment, reveling in each other's strength. Then she
turned her head and looked at the clock.

"It's two am," she said, and he heard a smile in her voice.

"So?" he asked.

"So it's not your birthday anymore."

"I repeat, so?"

He could feel the laugh begin in her stomach before it spilled out from
between her lips.

"So," she said, giving him a shove, "you get to go get the toilet paper."

end 3 of 3