By GoldX
GoldXnChain@aol.com or redthorndream@hotmail.net
 

Rating: NC-17
Spoilers: mainly Theef, all things
Category: SRA
Key Word: MSR
Disclaimer: The stories, concepts and
  characters of The X-Files belong to 1013
  and FOX Television. Not me. Thanks for
  not suing.
Summary: The cases keep marching on. How
  do the X-files agents hang in there? How do
  they carve out an existence that keeps
  them sane? This is a slice of their lives in
  Season 7.
Feedback: Please. Constructive criticism is consumed
  respectfully. Praise is scarfed like a pint of
  Ben and Jerry's. Flames go to the porcelain altar.
  GoldXnChain@aol.com or redthorndream@hotmail.net
Archive: Okay. This can go anywhere with headers
  intact. Please write so I can thank you and visit
  its snazzy accommodations.
Thanks!: Big, heaping ones to the great *fuzzy* one
  who has been my long suffering beta. She must have
  thought this puppy would never see the light of
  day, but she never let on. Thanks to carol for
  jumping in midway when *I* thought this thing wouldn't
  see the light of day and tweaking it and patting my
  shoulder. Thanks to Lilydale for her kind words when
  she received this as her E-Muse Secret Santa story.
  And last but not least, thanks to my best friend Mary
  who supported my efforts sight unseen, and has already
  driven me about a thousand miles in search of colorful
  settings for my next opus.
 
 
 

Prologue

Mulder's apartment, Alexandria, VA

What the hell does Scully want from me?
Okay, I've spent the evening immersed in video
games and prowling the Internet. It wasn't
even porn. Okay, I've just wanted to be numb.
Numb is good right now. Doncha want some
numbness now, Scully? Too much has happened.
Too much always happens and I'm fucking
sick of it. She wants me to talk about it;
she, the queen of the enigmatic silence,
wants *me* to talk.

Okay.

It's simple: my sister is dead. She was abducted,
then imprisoned. Now she's free and happy, at
least as far as I could tell. This should make me
happy, and sometimes it does. But she's gone
into the ether. Sometimes I feel the longtime
hole in my heart is now bottomless. Numb is
better.

My mother is dead, simply and suddenly gone. I
teeter between sorrow and guilty relief. Perhaps
she did, too, at the end.

It's all over: my family is dead. It wasn't
much of one. In life, I couldn't do much to
make it better. And there's nothing to be done
for it now.

I had a simple mission in life. I didn't
ask for much; I wanted to find my sister.
Nobody else did. I did. So now I know, at
least as much as I'm going to.

At least I've seen Samantha. Hell, maybe
I'm delusional. Or maybe I've had a religious
experience. That's always been Scully's territory.
Perhaps that's why she plainly thinks I've gone
around the bend. To do her justice, I've
always been a cynical bastard about religion.
A one-eighty in the middle of an emotional
crisis doesn't inspire confidence in my grip on
reality. The karma of my past attitude
has come to bite me. Scully would probably agree
if she believed in karma.

I'm free. "Freedom's just another word for nothing
left to lose." Not quite nothing. I listen to
the echo of my slamming door and her footsteps
stalking to the elevator.

I should be saying these things to her instead
of to the inside of my skull. She might still be
here if I had gathered my thoughts and delivered
them instead of blowing her off for Lara Croft.
It's sad. I wasn't even playing a new game. So, how
many times have I played Tomb Raider in all its
permutations? I don't even want to think hard
enough to master a new game. So I like Lara's
legs. I'm a frigging pig. Langley thinks I am
such a video wuss; he's a Resident Evil freak.
Or last I heard. Frohike understands about me and
Lara. He's likes her legs, too.

Two days 'til the full moon and we're off to SoCal to
chase another monster. You know, many cops come to
view the world as made up of cops and bad guys.
Who, besides me and Wes Craven, sees the world as
peopled by monsters and victims? I don't
have much of a personal beef with the *real*
monsters. They are ghastly experiments of nature
born into a world with no ecological niche. No,
the true, god-awful freaks have names like Pfaster,
or Krycek, or C. G. B. Spender.

What the hell can a werewolf do in urban L.A.?
He isn't even dressed right for the place. Someone
will berate him for wearing fur. No, he belongs
somewhere in medieval Transylvania, where he
could pick off sheep and the occasional peasant.
The local populous could have some fun and
exercise hunting him down with torches and pitch
forks. At least there, peasants and monsters
have a place in the scheme of things.

Scully's not enthused about tracking a beast
in the urban landscape. But she'll come with
me, good trooper that she is. She doesn't
even want to expend the energy to argue.

We're both so sad and tired much of the time.
A road trip with werewolves is at least a
diversion. Well, at least I'll find it diverting.

I'm pretty good at amusing myself with the
goofy peripherals of life. Give me a good computer
loaded with badass software and a good Internet
connection. Add a TV, a VCR and a rental card. Oh,
and cable. I'm set. Too bad they're no good
in the sack. To get what I want to warm my bed,
I need a much better attitude than I've been
showing lately.

Our timing sucks. Weeks ago I was doing okay. I
was in a good place to listen to her. Better
than now. I could see the cracks in her
composure, her doubts, her unresolved fury
at the violation she'd had at the hands of
that piece of shit, Pfaster. But she packed
her emotions away, my good old, iron-willed
Scully. Now I'm left with nothing to give her.
It's been weeks and I don't know if the physician
has healed herself. I suspect not. But I can't
do a thing about it.

This french dip would be better if I'd eaten it
when Scully had brought it over, hot. No wonder she's
pissed off if I can't even show her the common
courtesy of stopping to eat with her when she's
done me the courtesy of coming over to feed me.
Boy, these fries are nasty, cold. Screw this.
They feel like lead on my stomach.

My emotions must seem like vomit to her. I
wonder if she closes herself off because I have
enough mental chaos for the both of us. Her
moods are like ocean currents, moving warm and
cold beneath the surface. I'm bobbing in a little
boat and casting for clues to her state of mind.
Sometimes I get lucky. But not lately.

I'm going back to numb.

The Gunmen have sent over some game prototypes.
This stuff looks a bit slicker than the usual
games their little game-making community
comes up with. Sort of a Dark City look.
Frohike swore me to secrecy and quizzed me on
my current level of firewalls. Please. I protect
bigger secrets than the next craze for pimply
thirteen-year-olds. I don't think this is
going to displace Doom anyway. It's pretty plodding
and heavy-handed. FPS logo. Whoever they are, they'd
best do better than this.

I swear the guys need to get out more.

Hello, Lara. Did you miss me?

You're great, Lara, but I know a petite redhead
who could kick your butt.

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

Tethered (2/11)
Author: GoldX
GoldXnChain@aol.com

Please, see part 1 for the header.
 
 

Motel 6 in West Hollywood, CA

Having resolved the search for my sister, fate
has granted me my lost adolescence. How? Fate
laughed and delivered me to L.A.

Southern California. An x-file in its own right.
My joints whine at me and my cuts and bruises
moan. I got beaten up by a cyber-babe at First
Person Shooter, Inc. What a wuss! But I did get
to see Scully kick some cyber-butt.

This entire week has been a roller coaster of
hormonal rushes: endorphins, adrenaline,
testosterone. Probably low on the
serotonin and melatonin to judge by my sleep
patterns. Three hours a night is pretty bad
even by my standards, no dreams but little
sleep either.

I snag the last bit of cold pizza. Scully won't
need it for breakfast. I cased a patisserie down
the street (an unusual find in LA) and will
provide some rich French concoctions and
gourmet coffee, a positively decadent breakfast
for Scully. Her morning is good if she gets
good coffee. Hopefully this will help prove I've
got the right balance of estrogen to go with
my influx of testosterone. No, I don't just shoot
the crap out of things. I am capable of the
thoughtful gesture. Just right now would be a
good time to show it.

Agents Scully and Mulder have been handling work
with their usual aplomb, such as it is. We're
still working the kinks out the Scully-and-Mulder
friendship thing. I *have* been like a particularly
heedless thirteen-year-old and being on the Left
Coast hasn't hurried my return to normalcy. I
think Scully is ready to forgive my pubescent
behavior if I show any signs that this episode is
running down. But I don't think I've convinced her
that it really is running down.

Los Angeles has had a weird effect on me. My deep
stuff has gotten shallower and my shallow stuff
has gotten deeper. Does that make sense? Where
did my quest for the Truth, the Whole Story,
and the Big Issues go? Well, hey, dude, lighten up!

Life here feels like it's staged on a cheesy,
second-string network. I mean, come on! Jade Blue
Afterglow? Steve and Edie? Matreya, the virtual,
crazed Lara Croft wannabe? Me, a demented Geraldo
on reality TV? *Me*, a crazed, Lara Croft wannabe?
Nobody would believe these characters. A producer
would reject them out of hand. Except maybe on FOX
or the WB. If Scully had script control the whole
project would have been scrapped, pronto. Finis.

But it all seemed reasonable at the time.

Jesus Christ! I can't believe I had the delusion
that these cases would actually pan out. I, who
generally can't even get Scully into the same
space as paranormal phenomena, was going to get
a camera there, on "Cops" yet. I, who have lost more
weapons than most people have lost sunglasses
was going to take out a sexy, well-armed, malicious
computer program. Oh yeah, right.

From the moment we got off the plane, L.A. was
one, big, adolescent fantasy. Of course, it
was more like one for a virgin who's thinking
about it, than a guy who's getting any. We stepped
into the world of slasher monsters, impossibly
pneumatic babes, candy-haired hookers, and blazing,
virtual automatic weapons. Now, I'm tired and
sore and twanging with libido like an overtuned
instrument.

L.A. is the stuff of fantasies but no one really
lives here. And I am not getting any because
there's nothing adolescent about Scully. Adolescent
fantasies don't turn her on. They just make her
tired. And boy, does SoCal have her tired just now.
Thus the propitiation with the decadent breakfast.
Not that I'm expecting any until we get back to
D.C, anyway. She frowns on sex while in the field.
She doesn't want the locals to get our erotic
vibes. And she says she can't concentrate on
the job at hand. She ignores the fact that I
certainly can't concentrate when I spend days
in her presence with no more than platonic
touches.

Scully, in the field these days, is cool and
efficient. She's not one of the boys. Used to be
there was time for in-jokes and playfulness. No
time allotted for laughter now. Okay, that's not
totally true. If the case is light enough she'll
let herself go a bit. Sometimes. But the road
has been long and each recovery from the darkness
longer. I want to throw caution to the wind and
plant a big one on those lips before God and the
LAPD and suck out all the shadows. Not a
chance in hell. If only.

If. If. If. Whatever. In any case she deserves
one of her favorite breakfasts. Serious. She
works like a dog; her back aches; her legs ache.
She either eats like a bird, or scarfs junk food
that makes her stomach cranky. She stays up 'til
all hours, then collapses, sleeps like the dead
for five hours, then springs forth to battle the
baddies again.

There may be nothing adolescent about Scully
but there is an occasional glimpse of the
childlike. And it usually appears when she's
pooped. She gets this sweet, sleepy mien that is
irresistible. Then if she doesn't fall asleep
on me (often literally) we make long, tender
love, her body soft and pliable, her sounds
like a sated, nursing kitten. And I surround
her and scoop her up, rubbing my face in her
velvety flesh. So good!

Actually, she's always good. Scully's even
good in a bad mood. I have a secret weapon:
if I can get her to accept my touch, a firm,
full body massage will often restore her mood
and her energy. Then she takes me in hand and
we thrash and couple and laugh and collapse
in a tangle of limbs. Also good, indeed.

But not in the field.

She likes her bed. I like her bed. I do. I blow
my pay on Armani. She blows it on the best
mattress, on sheets with thread counts in the
higher three figures, on giant, fluffy goose-down
pillows. And a big fluffy, goose-down comforter.

I sleep the sleep of the blameless in her bed.

I think I want to hibernate there next winter,
like a bear. Maybe I'll run it by her. Or maybe
I won't. Don't want to be victim of the deadly
eyebrow.

A faint trill next door, and then I hear her voice
drifting through the half open connecting door.
I start throwing the pizza rinds away and toss my
suitbag on the bed. Calls at the crack
of dawn are never good.

"Yes, sir...requested?...suicide...no?...an x-file
....I'm sure we..." I hear a muffled yawn in
there. "Of course, sir. Thank you, sir."

She delivers the news. We're in for
an unexpected sprint up to Marin County,
catching a 7:30 AM flight. Some guy with
Marin Sheriffs we met at Quantico last year,
who'd taken an inordinate interest in our
Tales from the Darkside, heard we were on
the coast and sent out a request for us.
At least the scene will be fresh. Scully
just sighs and acquiesces in the inevitable.

She wants her bed even more than I do.

Okay, we'll just have to see what kind of
goodies we can find at LAX. There's gotta be a
Starbucks or a Gloria Jean's.
 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

Alaska Airlines, LAX to San Francisco

Morning, Sunshine.  That salutation has
become pretty ironic. Nowadays, since Pfaster-
hell, since Africa- given the chance, Scully
sleeps for twelve, sometimes fourteen hours a night,
on the weekend. My concern about this she
brushes off with some medical b.s. about
the importance of sleep to good health. She does
manage to get things done; she values her
ordered existence. Laundry, house cleaning,
the gym. But it has been months since we've
gone to a game, seen an in-house movie, or visited
an exhibit. Dressed up. Or, come to think of it,
indulged in morning lovemaking. I get up,
set the coffee maker, and run; she sleeps;
I return, read the paper; she nurses a slow
wakefulness. We quietly putter through her
chores and my chores. Saturday night, let's
inject a little romance: we cook for each other,
or go out to some bistro that isn't Denny's,
Coco's or Micky D's. If we have shepherded our
energy, it's time for some good lovin'.
Sunday Mass (late service), a visit with her mom,
visits with a few old friends she touches bases with.
But I don't think she's gone to church for weeks.
Hmmmm. Hoops for me, or pizza with the guys. A quiet
dinner together, a video, quick sex. I go home.
Or she goes home. Then it's Monday.

And now it's Saturday and we are on the job
in California.

The plane lifts out of the miasma of smog and
mania that is L.A. Bye, Fox-Mulder-at-Thirteen.
Later, dude.

Three hours of sleep. It seems strange that I
used to be able to function on that little on a
regular basis. I wish this was a cross-country
flight. First, if it were to D.C. the trip would
end in Scully's bed- it *is* Saturday- and we'd
get some real rest, then, hopefully some real
recreation, and second, if it weren't, we'd still
sleep for a couple hours on each other's shoulder.
But this flight will be over in 45 minutes.

California. California. California.

Home of the shallow stuff and the very deep stuff.

My sister's spirit lives in a moonlit grove in
Victorville, eternally at play. Gossamer starlight
and no pain. Happily ever after. Until she walks
into another life. May it please Fate to have mercy
next time around.

And now I'm finding out what the hero does when
the quest is over.

At forty, one thing he really can't do is take
back the adolescence he missed. I'm way too old
to be serious with Ms. Croft. I look below me
at the clouds burning off on the Pacific coast.
Maybe I'll just float away and dissolve.

Scully's hand finds mine and those porcelain fingers
play over my knuckles, glide down the length of
my fingers, smooth over my nails. I don't look at
her, only at her hand at play. She turns over my
palm and traces its lines. Fate, life. Heart.
The tips caress the mounds below the fingers,
firm and real. Her hand in mine is the ultimate
reality. Nothing else exists. She's so damned
sensuous, so full of life. A fire lights my palm.

She says she loves my hands. I can't see it;
they are tools to me. But I love my hands
in hers or on any part of her- her back,
her perfect face, the down of her arm. My
life with Scully is a continuum. Sex doesn't
start or end in bed- or on the rug, or on my
couch, or on a blanket under the sky. We've
made love from ten feet apart in evidence rooms,
across the booth in diners, and over sad and
hideous remains in anonymous morgues. While
Skinner's droned on about some meaningless
transgression against protocol and regulations,
we've had intercourse. I've made love to bumps
on her back in a small motel in Oregon and
consummated our arranged marriage, spilling
the words of my life into her ears that night,
just hours after meeting her.

She makes love to my hand. To hell with the
bed. I can wake up and work this case.

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X
 
 
 

Tethered (3/11)
Author: GoldX
GoldXnChain@aol.com

See part 1 for the header
 
 

Coco's Restaurant, Mill Valley, CA

Oh, this is an X-file all right. I've been
waiting, seemingly forever, to use my arcane
knowledge of mountain magic. Now here it
is and it's really textbook. Even the sheriff
detective, Lt. New Age saw it, which is why
he called us in. Man-shaped dirt on a bed.
An old man carefully arranged and displayed,
an offering to the old gods of the mountains,
the gods who like their tribute raw. Gods like
vengeance-is-mine Yahweh. Like Kali or Shiva
the Destroyer. Prayers that are a scream to the
heavens. Blood poured out on the floor, an
unwanted sacrifice in this doctor's home.
Somewhere, someone has the crudest tools of
powerful magic: a poppet, an image, a bit of
hair or a nail paring. And a boatload of hate
and belief.

We had found the Wieders, Robert, Nan,
and daughter Lucy wandering among the
professionals in their beautiful home with
the glassy looks of the violently bereaved.
They walked quickly through their entrance
hall, heads down as they pass the wall that
screamed "theeF"! at them in a splash
of crimson. We joined them in the relative
calm of a sitting room. Soon enough they
circled the wagons in defense of the family.
Everyone loved Nan's dad, Irvin Thalbro.
Everyone loves Robert Wieder. Such
a meaningless crime must be as random as
lightening from the sky. There was no "theeF"
in the Wieder home. Save the one who stole Irv
Thalbro from them.

Scully bites into a turkey, avocado croissant,
mulling over the surprising appearance of
kuru in an elderly professional. She still
smells faintly of the morgue. That's just
workaday eau de Scully. She's keeping me
guessing. I don't know if she's just been
trying to stimulate me- professionally-
or if she's really starting to move glacially
toward...I don't know, what? A more Spooky
outlook?

I can't put a box around Scully. Every
time I do, she breaks out in some surprising
direction. For several weeks there's been
distance between us. While I've been on
my own cloud, Scully has been stoically ticking
through these odd and disjointed cases
we've gotten. But now she's getting a mild kick
out of this keep-Mulder-guessing game we're
playing. She's full of secret mirth at my
quizzical response. No arguments for the sake
of argument? Hexcraft, sure, Mulder. She
reserves judgment; she won't commit but
she doesn't split hairs. She waits to see
what will unfold.

Sometimes I forget what a strange pair we are.

How is this an X-file, Mulder? Conjure dust
is the least of it. A mentally impaired man
in his mid-sixties hangs a rope from a chandelier
on a cathedral ceiling? Arranges it perfectly so
he hangs as one standing? Cuts his throat *and*
writes "theeF" in buckets of blood on a wall
fifteen feet away? That's an excellent trick
for a suicide. Getting all that preparation
done in a house scattered with motion sensors
is also an excellent trick for a murderer. That
it was ultimately murder, however it happened,
was never even a question, in my mind.

I bite into a medium rare burger and think
about blood on a wall.

Someone is attacking this family, probably
specifically attacking the handsome, successful
Dr. Wieder. He must be the "theeF". He has
everything; the murderer has nothing. Dr. Wieder
has taken *everything*. Most probably a loved
one. Evil creeps in from the holler. Yeah,
this brand of magic looks Appalachian. The
bright, yuppie family, in its yuppie community,
has no defense against this primitive intent.
It doesn't even know it needs a defense.

"Is anyone else going to die?"

Right on cue, Scully has the $64,000 question.

"I don't know. But I'm pretty sure it's not
over. The "theef" hasn't lost everything."

"Dr. Wieder is the "theef"?"

"Yeah, I think so. Yeah."

"Any ideas?"

"Man from the backside of nowhere, older, very
introverted, very outside his element here.
But very much in his element in what he's
accomplishing: fear and despair. He's going
to make contact with Dr. Wieder soon. He was
in the house. He wants Wieder to know why
he's suffering. I tried to get Wieder to accept
some protection, but he's wed to the disease/suicide
theory. This is outside his world view."

"Well, Mulder, it was a disease and it was suicide,
at least in a sense."

"Don't play dumb, Scully. You saw everything I saw."

"I know that, Mulder. I know Thalbro didn't
accomplish it all himself. I can just see the
straws that Dr. Wieder is grasping."

"Straws are not going to keep him afloat. But
I'm not really convinced that guards are the
answer either. Those are just my own straws."

We both turn to gaze out the coffeeshop window
at the gray day. That's the worst of our job:
waiting for the other shoe to drop. Scully has the
disease and the cause of death. I have a semblance
of a means, a motive and a vague profile of the
UNSUB. We have a somewhat uncooperative potential
victim. But no real suspect. And time is ticking.
And someone is waiting patiently in the dim
corners.

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

Holiday Inn, Mill Valley, CA

I almost grabbed her phone. What time is it?

She rolls out of my arms and answers it with
economy and monosyllables. And looks at me sternly.

"Dr. Wieder. Yes, you were right to call."

There really are some good reasons to maintain
the sanctity of the field-bed. But it's her
rule, and I'm not going to complain if she wants
to break it. I had been staring into the darkness
for an hour when I heard the connecting door open.
She set her cell on the night stand and slipped
into my bed. She was there for rest; she cuddled
against me, warm under her satin pajamas. We both
got some quality sleep. And there won't be any
specific erotic radiation. I was good. I was too
tired to be anything but. So was she, I think.

Of course, Dr. Wieder would call Dr. Scully.
He's given up on any sense from Agt. Spooky
Mulder. She hits the off button and turns
to me.

"Mulder, Nan Wieder has come down with some
acute skin and tissue disease that has compromised
all surfaces including the membranes of her
throat and mouth."

"Alive, I take it?"

"Oh, yes, they've got her stabilized."

"Any disease come to mind, Scully?"

"No. It's going to be another oddity, I think."

"The mark of our UNSUB, Scully. I can't see
him thumbing through a diagnostic text. He
must want a result and the curse provides
the means."

She doesn't reply to that; she's not quite sold.

"I'm showering. Can we take off in about 30
minutes? USF Medical."

"I'm there."

No time for pastries. Or croissants. Or doughnuts.

And only motel coffee, God help me.

Maybe there's a Starbucks near the med center.
Hell, there are probably two or three of them.

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

North Point, San Francisco, CA

Dr. Wieder responded to us, to *me*, just as
I expected. If he won't see the enemy, he
can't fight it. And the disease is not the
enemy here. But it's an enemy with which he's
most comfortable. He can't come to terms with
the Robert Wieder that could inspire this kind
of hate.

So we are off to find a weapons store. Weapons
for this particular form of attack.

If anyone thinks *I'm* strange they should
troll these kinds of paranormal stores. They
come in several flavors.

Two we visit would seem to be transplants
from Sedona, the sweetness-and-light school
of the spiritual and paranormal. A dozen
books on angels. More on romanticized Native
American lore, Zen, feng shui. Oh, oh, lookie,
tantric yoga. Scully answers my rueful smile
with a tiny one of her own. We've tried some
of that. I managed to strain something;
Scully's as limber as an eel. Rune stones,
tarot. Lots of pastels, crystals, and
iridescent glitter. Books on Pleideians,
aliens as saviors of the world, imparters
of ancient wisdom. Bullshit. Cassandra
Spender would have been right at home here at
one time, poor lost soul. Sweet women and serene,
ethereal young men ready to help you with
anything, until you bring up the subject of
dark magic. Lofty disapproval: that's not
keeping your mind on a higher plane, you see.

This dark decored one, at first glance, seems
more likely. But no go, it's Goth City.

Pimply kid in whiteface, tattoos, thickly
pierced, is trying desperately to be this
latest version of ominously cool.  He is
pathetically eager to seem knowledgeable
and nonchalant. Oh, yeah, he knows a guy who's
the real thing. Yeah, man, you can meet him
at Serbius on Fridays. Or is it the Darkrose
on Saturdays? Well, one of those clubs. Anyway
they say he connects with Satan and can do
a curse that sticks. Heard this girl pissed him
off and he gave her this curse where she's
broken a finger, two ribs, and her ankle in
one month. Well, it could be that she's
been doing hash and ecstasy while knocking back
Absolut. But lots of people do that and they
don't break bones. "But I'm not into that
evil shit. I'm more into the amoral, ancient
forces of nature. I do a killer reading with
the Thoth tarot. $20? Just takes fifteen
minutes. Or I could do a couple's reading
for $30. You two got interesting vibes.
Okay, maybe next time. Blessed be."

Next Santeria. Or some Caribbean mixture of
traditions. Wrong brand of magic even if we
could sort through the heavy dialect. Gracias.
Au revoir.

At last, this one smells right, it smells
authentic. It's dark and businesslike.
Unpretentious, cluttered but clean.
Eccentrically organized herbs, candles,
used books with lovingly worn covers,
secrets in the crannies. Even Scully can feel
it. We both walk carefully around the
pentagram on the floor. This proprietor looks
sharp and very aware. She is. I pull out the
evidence bag of conjure dust and she recoils,
not exactly in fear, but in caution, as one who
sees an novice awkwardly handling a chain saw.

She knows her stuff. A charm, the woman says.
A charm determines the precision and potency
of the magic. I'd heard of that concept in
vague terms, but didn't connect it in this
case. A charm could be anything, but it would
be something infused with passion. What is
this guy's passion? I start to get an idea,
but play it close to my vest.

Why do I still do that with Scully? It's so
childish; she knows that I brainstorm and
that every idea doesn't pan out. So why don't
I share? Sometimes I just like controlling
the timing of my revelations. It's part of
the Spooky image to pull out of the air
startling hypotheses that actually end up as
reality. Scully doesn't give a rat's
ass about the Spooky image. Just get the job
done. But she's accommodated herself to my
ways as I have to hers. Actually, she's
similarly cautious about committing herself
before the facts. But while I do it to be
spuriously impressive, she does it in order
not to be embarrassed. I don't give a rat's
ass about embarrassment. She crosses the t's
and dots the i's and couches her reports in
cautious language. She's good at protecting our
backs from the pencil pushers. She cobbles
together some of the unlikeliest cases into
the stuff of science. Beat that for impressive,
Spooky.

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

Wieder residence, Mill Valley

Nan Wieder's dead. Very dramatically dead. Her
last MRI seared her with a blast of radiation.

"TheeF" is branded, a maker's mark in her
charred skin, and etched indelibly from any
angle in her morning brain scans. The hunter
is back. Wieder, the hunted, must have seen
the scans earlier. It didn't take a doctor
or a trained tech to *read* this: literally,
"theef" written in shades of gray on the
transparencies. How far in denial was this guy?

I guess it doesn't matter. He's a believer
now and he's clinging desperately to the hope
that his daughter can be protected.

But even now, Scully has to pry from him the
fact that the UNSUB had visited him. Christ,
what does he expect us to work with? But
I stay impassive. Pushing him now, when he's
so close to broken, won't help.

Ah, shame has been blocking him. The man has
the arrogance found in a man at the top of
the medical field, a field that has more of
art mixed with its science than he wants to
admit. Failure happens to other people. And
beyond the arrogance, he is essentially a good
man, a good doctor. He really wants to heal
every patient who passes though his hands.
But that poor, young woman was not going to
see any healing, only pain. "First, do no
harm." But where's the harm in relieving the
suffering of someone on the downward path?
She didn't die of a morphine overdose; she
died of trauma. But along with the easing of
pain, the drug relaxed the body in its futile
fight, and she went gently, without a
convulsive battle.

Well, now we have a name to link to motive
and a face to put on the law enforcement net.
Lynette Peattie. Jane Doe, a broken body
in a bus wreck. Her pa is hunting the thief of
her young life if I'm not mistaken. Now it's
time to hunt down the charm.

Scully takes the trail of Lynnette Peattie's
history and her grave. She's much better at
wheedling computer wonks to do her bidding than
I. I'll just herd Wieder through the process
of making a composite. I think the end is in
sight.

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X
 
 
 

Tethered (4/11)
Author: GoldX
GoldXnChain@aol.com

See part 1 for the header
 
 
 

Oakland, CA

This is the dreariest graveyard I've ever
seen. I've seen sad; I've seen sinister.
This is soulless. This must have seemed
like a corner of Hell to Pa Peattie as a
place for his sweet Lynette, a place as
far as possible from their wooded Eden.
I doubt most of the commuters
that pass by on that freeway every day
even know this place exists, that there
is such thing as a potter's field in
Oakland. If they notice it at all, it is just
a gridded bit of land someone wrested from
the urban landscape between the interchanges.
Who'd think it was a city-owned graveyard?

The name is Orel Peattie, Scully reports.
One reference to him and his daughter: an
aborted attempt to vaccinate the girl child.
Period. They have no other place on the
public record map, no property, no taxes,
no social security numbers. They lived in a
little corner of the nineteenth century,
perhaps the eighteenth. Probably born at
home on an unmarked country road attended by a
local midwife. There was no public schooling.
Then somehow, sometime the young bird thought
to spread her wings but crash-landed at the
other end of the continent before she could
really soar. And her pa has come out of the
East, out of his mountains to visit his
vengeance on the world that seduced her,
and to his mind, killed her, all in the
person of Dr. Robert Wieder.

I'm not so cocky about my unveiling of
the charm now. As usually happens, grim
reality has set in and I only hope to hurry
the end of this before Peattie can rain
more destruction on this bewildered family.
I hand Scully my umbrella and open
the casket.

My stomach sinks. Peattie needs to be closer
to his charm than I thought. The body is
gone.
 
 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

Hwy. 99 Tulare County, CA

What is the speed of darkness?

I left the Foster City boarding house on
automatic. I will get there. I am in motion.
We will nail the sucker. This will happen.

I'm one step, two steps behind old man
Peattie. I sent the Wieders to the mountains,
to the woods to hide. Oh, good move, Spooky.
A sheer fluke I caught that news report
about his poor landlady. And luck that
flesh-eating bacteria is news. Kuru wouldn't
have grabbed the lead so easily.

Thank God for the composite. A quick ID
by the neighbors bought us our warrant.
But no Orel Peattie. Lynette's body was
tucked in his bed, but oh Jesus! the head
was gone.

I caught a puddle jumper from San Mateo
to Fresno but now I'm stuck in this rented
piece of junk. And just how much more can
this Detroit reject do on this godforsaken
highway? Ninety miles per hour,
let the CHP know I'm coming through.
I speed through the darkness toward the
Sierras.

He has the charm. He has the power. He
has the head, dammit!

The Wieders are sitting targets, drawing
Peattie like natural prey do their natural
predator. These sad remainders of a family,
suddenly out of their depth, trusting to
our protection, do not deserve to be
sacrificed to the old mountain ways, to
be the target of Peattie's rage
against a world that took his darling.

Scully, Scully, take care. Please.

He didn't kill the old woman, I reassure
myself. (He maimed her, my mind whispers.) He's
not wedded to evil. He sees this as justice.
He *knows* that careless evil will rebound,
by all he holds sacred. Only the guilty and
those the guilty one loves deserve to die.
As his beloved died. Unless he's let it all
go in a plunge of heedless hate. Fuck, will
this thing move?!

I think of her hand, tethering me to
reality, keeping me from dissolving into
nothingness. She is my reality now. These
treacherous moments have become harder
and harder to handle. Where will it end?
In her grave and then shortly in mine? That
is not an option. Slow down, breathe. She's
as good as anyone at the quick analysis, the
correct decision in crisis. Trust her. Trust
her brains. Trust the God she believes in.
Trust the force of my utter need. As usual,
all this ends up bound to my complete
self-centeredness. Please let her survive
because she deserves to. Amen.

She needs me at her back. Dear God. Thirty
more miles up the hill to Sequoia. I call for
back up, local sheriffs, rangers, whatever's
available.

Oh, Scully.
 
 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

Sequoia National Forest, CA

The redwood needles crackle under my feet as
I quietly emerge from my car. I feel his
presence on my skin. I will my skin, my
ears, my eyes to seek him out. Scully's car.
Oh, shit! Broken glass. Wait. Don't miss
anything. No blood on the vehicle, no assault,
no abduction. Then what? It springs out at me.
A little doll, a burlap gingerbread man,
laying on a man-shaped patch of dirt. My
heart leaps out of my chest. Nails through
the eyes. I know this is not aimed at the
Wieders but at their guardian. I pull the
bits of iron out and viciously kick and
scuff the dirt apart. He still has the charm;
will this break the spell?

I become aware of muffled cries coming from
the dark building as I draw nearer. My teeth
grind as I clutch my weapon in one hand and
the poppet in the other. The path, the steps,
the porch...The head stands as a sentinel at
the door. Shots fired! I feel as if I am
running through water as I push through into the
firelit room.

Scully's back is to me, the acrid odor of
gun powder comes from the Sig she is slowly
lowering. Peattie lies at her feet. She turns the
blaze of her gaze on me, pupils dilated to
full, no doubt absorbing the remains of my
panic face. I offer her the little figure and
she takes it. She says nothing, but stares
at the puckered holes of the eyes. She checks
out Orel Peattie. Alive, barely. I pull out my
cell and try to find out where that backup
I ordered is. And send paramedics- now. As she
turns to go up the stairs to check on Lucy
and Robert, I see her shoulders shudder then
straighten. And that's it for her. Freaking
amazing.

Well, I don't care if we are in the field.
She's going to have to put up with my needy
presence when we get a chance to crash.

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

Tethered (5/11)
 

San Francisco Medical Center
 
 

We've been up for thirty-six hours.
A shooting and an arrest can generate a lot
of paperwork and a lot of interviews.

She's on administrative leave- again.
Second shooting in four months. The Fresno
SAC looked in askance at this. Is this agent
trigger-happy? No, ma'am, we just have a
knack of finding friends in low places.
What do you think? She got the shit beaten
out of her in her own home by a man whose
next intent was to dismember her. She shot
him. Last night she was disarmed by a wiry,
old cuss with a knife, who had killed two
of a family, who was actively attacking the
survivors. When she recovered her weapon she
shot him, too. She's a healer, not a killer
but sometimes it plays out that way.

I told the SAC the minimum that I had
seen, then stopped and shut up. Scully's
finally got me trained.

Lucy Wieder, bless her suddenly stubborn
and intelligent heart, looked SAC Marie
Deluccia in the eye and told her that, yes,
he was threatening them with a knife.
Peattie used the words "an eye for an eye"
in connection with the death of a patient,
reportedly his daughter. Then her father
went into a heart attack. Agent Scully
disabled their attacker, rendered aid to
her father, and generally saved them both.

She even treated the scum who'd attacked
them. As far as she is concerned, Agent Scully
is guardian angel. So stop wasting her time.
Deluccia couldn't argue with that, especially
when it took care of a messy case that had
suddenly landed in her lap. She signed
off on it. There'll be one more hearing
in D.C., but it will be a formality.

Scully sips her decaf and leans against
a doorjamb in ICU, closing her eyes, then
opening them abruptly. I want to do my
usual routine and get her to talk but
I know better than to force it.

She'll only share what's going on with
her in her own time, in her own way.
 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X
 

Napa Valley, CA

It's amazing how easy it is for me to
spill my guts, my emotions. Not
necessarily in a decipherable fashion,
mind you, but it gets out there. What's
easy for me is a real flesh twister for
Scully.

She doesn't ask where we are going. I'd
think she was asleep, so motionless has
she remained, but I see the glint of
moonlight on her eyes. So silent, not
even a sigh, seeming to hold in even the
sound of her breath.

To hell with staying in the Bay Area.
As far as the Bureau is concerned, we
are tucked in our beds in Mill Valley.
I called Kimberly- Skinner was in meetings-
and told her that we were taking our
weekend tomorrow and the next day. If we
are needed we can be reached on our cells.

I leave Scully zoning in the car.

I register us in the Verdigris Bed and
Breakfast, Mr. and Mrs. Timothy Connelly,
the pleasant innkeepers. Mrs. Connelly smiles
a grandmotherly smile and waves away my
apologies for our late arrival. She and
her husband run an obviously well-loved
place.

The cozy room with the king-sized bed
and vineyard view in Napa is on my dime.
And the bathroom has both a real bath
and a real shower. I checked ahead. Packed
in my overnight is something I picked up
in one of the pastel, New Age shops: a set
of aromatherapy bath oils, gels, and a
natural sponge. Scully laughed a little at
the time. Since when did I take baths?
I gave my best impression of her enigmatic
smile. Of course, she knew it was for her.
But she doesn't take baths while on a case.
She won't allow her mind or body to relax.
Besides, she hates having this indulgence
interrupted as can happen when she's on the
job. She's single-minded in everything.
Showers have been the order of the day for
the past two weeks- quick and efficient.
Now the last case is finished.

She collapses in a soft, overstuffed
chair, her eyes finally closed. I keep my
mouth shut and busy myself putting away
our overnight bags.

"Mulder, so where are we, again?"

"Napa Valley."

"Why?" She tries for some awareness. "Isn't
that sort of out of the way?"

"Because we're tired and, yes it is, but
I wanted to get away from Marin. As head of
this division, I'm assigning myself two
comp days. You're on leave."

"Hmmm."

She doesn't open her eyes. I leave the
bedroom and continue with my preparations
in the bathroom. This is a nice, big tub;
both of us could fit. But this isn't for
me. This is for her. I test the flow. Yup.
A little hotter than I am comfortable with.
Scully even likes her relaxing baths on the
edge. Besides, it will cool off shortly.
I pull out three varieties of oils:
relaxation, spirituality, and romance.
Relaxation, no question.

I sniff it. There is definitely lavender
in here. It reminds me of a summer trip
to Provence, a short break from college,
when I really didn't feel like going
home. France on a hundred francs a
day. How about those days before
inflation? I'd like to see Scully in a
summer dress in the hills of Provence,
near Nimes, I think, wandering among the
Roman ruins. Like Southern California, it
is hot and dry, but without the smog
and without the craziness.

We've never taken a vacation together.
Traveling means work. We both tend to hole
up and lick our wounds during any break in
the action. Or she travels to see bits of
her family. We are both so goal oriented.
She's right; we need to get out of the damned
car.

Into the tub would be a start.

I kneel before her and gently start removing her
shoes, her stockings, caressing her arches.
Then I reach up to her knit top. Ten to one
she'll think I'm about to jump her bones.
*What the hell are you doing, Mulder?* She
knows what a horny devil I am, and it *has*
been eleven days.

So. "What are you doing, Mulder?"

She doesn't say it defensively; she's relaxed
and curious. Just keep on guessing, Mulder.

"I've drawn you a bath, dear heart."

A deep breath. "I'm afraid I'll fall asleep
and drown myself."

"That's why you were smart and brought
along your bath boy."

I continue quietly plucking off clothing.
She watches dreamily as if it is happening
to someone else. I don't even cop a feel,
though I can't resist a quick brush of lips
on her shoulder. I'm so proud of myself.
I've tamed the beast. For the moment.

Scully, in any state of hygiene, smells
wonderfully. Okay, maybe not after the
explosion in the methane plant. But even
then, she wasn't as bad as I made out when
I teased her about it. I draw in her scent
as I pull her out of the chair. If there
is such a place, heaven smells like Scully.

Scully naked is far removed from Scully
clothed. Clothed, she is clearly defined,
she is outlined against the scenery, neat
and compact. Naked she seems made of light.
I've never seen skin like hers; it's
probably one of those Irish genetic things,
but I like to see it as a Dana Scully thing.
In the midst of the joy and awe I feel when
I unwrap her, I am again jarred by the
sight of the things that mar her: fresh
purple bruises from the run-in with that
bastard Peattie, an old scar here and there
where Scully has fallen, or has been struck,
or thrown, fresh red marks courtesy of the
Pfaster scum, and that angry scar below
her ribs where she took a bullet last year.

I can't take the blame for the last,
directly. And Scully insists I shouldn't
take on the blame for any of her injuries.
But I do, for them all. Her relationship
with me has defined these spikes in her
life. But now I keep it to myself for the
most part. She's taken to assessing me
five bucks a throw for any remark she deems
overly guilt-ridden or needlessly
self-deprecating. And she doesn't give
an inch. She says she doesn't like to hear
me diss her lover. Especially since it's me.
The first month yielded a concert at Lincoln
Center (Itzak Perleman), orchestra seating.
In the second, I came up with the scratch
for a very nice dinner at Galileo. Third
month, I had beaten it down to the cover
and an evening of drinks and appetizers
at a jazz club. Now I deliberately throw
out a self-wounding barb or two just to
get a rise out her and to sweeten the kitty.
And when I do, she rolls her eyes and
rubs together her finger tips as I get
out my wallet.

She sways slightly as we step into the
bathroom. I turn her and wrap myself around
her as she nuzzles into my shirt. I wish
I could infuse her with something I've
seldom had: trust in the future, some hope
and joy. Somehow she got stuck in the car
with me, and these things were taken from
her. All sorts of doors shut in her face.
Sometimes in a mood of bathos, I think that I
should tell her to leave me, to go and have
a life.  But that's no answer. She loves me;
that's just the truth of it. The path she's
taken wouldn't suddenly dissolve if I kicked
her to the curb. The closest I've gotten to
pushing a separation was after Antarctica.

"You should get as far away from me as
you can."

She properly gave the idea short shrift.
We weren't even lovers then, in the commonly
accepted meaning of the word. But she wasn't
going to give in to my self-sacrifice, or
the Conspirators, or her own doubts. Scully's
the strongest person I know and she doesn't
even see it. I wish I could demand five
dollars for every look of dissatisfaction
I catch on her face when she doesn't meet
her own standards.

I guide her into the bath and she breathes
the fragrant steam. She slides bonelessly
under the water, her flesh already flushing
in the heat. I fold myself up on the floor
beside the tub and watch her limbs wavering
under the water, her hair curling in the
vapors, her breasts rising and falling, the
pulse at her neck beating a little quickly:
life, blessed life. As intensely as she lives,
she's an expert at completely releasing
all tension when the moment allows. I float
with her in this bit of eternity. It's like
the starlit grove, a time and place of rest
set aside from the relentless pressure of
karma. I don't want to leave this place.

I pick up her facial cleanser and a wedge
sponge and slowly begin to remove her
make-up: shadow, mascara, liner ever so
gently. Timeless Scully emerges years younger,
the lines drawn by our work smoothing and
redrawing into softer form. She looks like
a da Vinci, or a Vermeer, suffused with soft
light. Blush comes up off the skin but she
remains rosy in the heat of the water. A
feather kiss on her brow and she smiles
faintly, her eyes still closed.

Now the gel and the soft, new sponge. I
lift her arm from her side and slide the
sponge down her slim lines. You'd think
she was fragile but she's made of tempered
steel physically and spiritually. My hand
follows a natural path up and down, over
her spine, her shoulder blades. She rolls
her head around with my ministrations to
her neck, baring her throat, rubbing into
my motion. I methodically clean all her
surfaces, touching her sensually but not
sexually, delighting in doing this simple
thing for her.

Scented water pours from my cupped hands
as I rinse her. Then she's out of the tub
and wrapped in a fresh bath sheet. Thankfully, I
tossed one into the trunk with the bath things.
We've learned certain equipment is necessary
on the road. I hate to rub her down with the
sandpaper handkerchiefs they call towels in
some of these places.

She's practically asleep. Good.

I've laid out her pajamas, but she shakes
her head and tugs at my clothes.

"Next to you?" Naked, skin to skin, she
means. Sometimes my skin is her comfort.

"Sure." I strip down quickly. It's okay. I
roll call the troops. Mulder-at-Thirteen is
down in L.A. gawking at hookers on Hollywood
Blvd. Mulder-Junior is awake and hopeful.
Later, guy, later. He settles a bit.
Agent-Mulder admits there are no more mysteries
to be solved tonight. Paranoid-Mulder grumbles
that, yeah, guess we're safe here.
Scully's-Friend-and-Lover is the man of the hour
and is proud and happy to be there, to have
Vulnerable-Scully in his arms. To let the
crowd of Scullys rest easy for tonight.

Under sweet-smelling, cool sheets- thank you,
Mrs. Connelly- we arrange ourselves in a
favorite position: her head on my shoulder,
torso to torso, her thighs straddling one
of mine, my hands on her back and hip.

"Thank you." Her words are a whisper.

I kiss her hair and listen to the rhythm of
her breath as she drifts off.

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

Tethered (6/11)

Verdigris Bed and Breakfast, Napa, CA

In the darkness I feel her exploring my skin.

I love waking to this in the night. Sometimes
unexpectedly we just need to *be* right here,
right now, physically. Unplanned. In the
eternal now.

Or maybe it isn't so unexpected. I think
we both need each other's unadorned presence
just now. I've been floating, drifting ever
since I found my sister. Life has become
airy and light and insubstantial. And a
little scary. Things have gotten scary for
Scully, too. I think Donnie Pfaster still
looks over her shoulder, accusing her of all
her sins, holding out a hair shirt she's
all too ready to wear. And I've been untethered,
moving almost out of her reach. I could
have lost her in those mountains. I don't
want to have to find her in the starlight.

But here, now, in this bed, in the dark,
we are alive in each other.

She needs to take the reins tonight. Events
have driven us in the last weeks. I lay there
ready to cooperate with her lovely, carnal
impulses.

What part of me is her flavor-of-the-night?
Her lips nibble and pull at my flesh at my
collar, my neck, her arms cradling my
shoulders and my back. Her lips leave an
imprint, soft and warm, then quickly cool as
her tongue leaves a moist trail. Her hair is
softly scrunched in my hands. Her tender
mouth mmm... behind my ear, down my jawline.
Yes, my darling, stop a moment at my mouth.
She silently obliges. Her hands move and comb
and massage my scalp. We kiss deeply and
thoroughly, lips, tongues and teeth uniting.
Yes. Time disappears. It isn't missing. We've
just absorbed it.

Now she's moved on. She leisurely traces
my abs with her face, tickling me with her
nose, hugging my waist like a body pillow. I
feel her lips smile and I smile at the dark
ceiling. Everything below the waist is ready
and willing, but I'm patient. She continues
to lovingly tease my incipient paunch; my
cock pokes her chin, eager and hopeful.

Soon, soon enough her hands slide down
under me, and she kneads the round muscles
of my ass. She relaxes me as she excites me.
Those hands, those lips do a thorough
inventory of the flesh of my thighs. Then
a breathless moment. Oh, that's good, Scully.

I feel like Christmas in her hands and her
mouth, enjoyed and cherished. With other
lovers, head has often been a tradeoff for
future favors. But Scully gives and takes
freely. I took some convincing at first,
but her words and actions were emphatic:
pleasuring me pleasures her. Incredible.
Of course pleasuring her pleasures me, too.
But that just seems natural.

It's been eleven-no twelve-days and I'm not
planning on coming in her mouth. No. The
pressure is almost painful but I gently
cup my hands around her face and lift her
off me. We pull ourselves together upright
on our knees, pressed closely in thighs,
torsos, mouths, and tightly wound arms,
rubbing our slick bodies skin to skin in
short insistent movements. I've missed
this. She pulls me down to the sheets,
maintaining our close embrace.

I aim to wake up every square inch of her
and set off fireworks that will melt her
into a puddle on the pillow. Let's take the
time to do it right; let's make a good reason
for sweet dreams.

"Now."

Now? Well, I'm ready, but I hardly expect
her to be. She's used a deft, satisfying touch
with me that has me humming but I don't
feel a corresponding quickening in her yet.
I've hardly touched her; I had counted on some
play time with her body, to suckle and worry
her breasts, to kiss her other lips, to love
and caress her 'til I hear the sounds of her
impending climax.

"Please. Now."

I reach down and it seems she's wet enough.
Somehow I don't think she'll come, though.
She seems languorous and her breathing deep
and steady. She sighs and presses her lips
into the curve of my neck and shoulder. So.
This is comfort sex. I can work with that.
Just take a moment to kiss her eyes and nose
and the rim of her ear. Got to slow down this
show even if my body is screaming, "I'm gonna
have sex! sex!" I'm about forty, for Christ's
sake. Control has to be an advantage.

She reaches and guides me in; her muscles
squeeze me in a welcoming hug. Thank you
for having me, my love. I continue peppering
her skin with kisses, then move my mouth
over hers again -delicious, I could stay
here forever- as I slowly start stroking.
I slide my fingers down where they'll do
the most good. My mind searches for
distraction to keep this from running
away from me, when she interrupts me
by reaching for the lamp. The dim, warm
incandescence throws us into relief.

"Just let yourself go, Mulder. I'm fine-
I'm good. I just want to watch you and
feel you."

I look down and swim in her huge pupils.
I can't read her. But she smiles faintly,
reassuringly, then turns serious and intent.
Hard to believe this is all she wants. My
rampaging libido and the memories of her
sensual intensity on other occasions argue the
point, but if this is what my love wants,
I'll abandon myself in her, and she can enjoy
the show. We have another day and a half,
after all.

I let my body set the rhythm and let my
eyes sweep her expanse of creamy skin and
fall into her half-closed eyes. She stretches,
then negligently trails a hand around
the curve of a breast. Beautiful. This is
like a combination of porn and a walk in
the Louvre. I'm going to spill myself into
Baroque art, a Titian, perhaps. This is
a fine art kind of night. My pace quickens
as do our breaths. My motion blurs her hair
into a fiery halo, her eyes, moving blue sparks.
Her hands slide down my back and pull me
in deeply, like she wants me to dive into
her womb. She grips me fiercely. Harder,
Mulder, harder.

My mind takes that preternatural clarity
I sometimes get before climax. I know her
sense of place with me and our work had drifted.
Maybe my own spiritual contretemps disconnected
us somehow. I try to communicate my "thereness"
as I my body wields its urgency. Faster. Deeper.
Know that I'm yours, Scully. Know that, always.
Yes. Yes! I'm here, Scully. Sudden darkness as
my eyes disappear into the warm satin of her
neck, and I breathe incoherent words of love
and reassurance that buzz her skin. My cry as
I give up my seed is more agony than ecstasy.
Oh, God...oh, God...

"Ah, Mulder, love...shhh...it's good...shhh..."

And her lips are erasing the tears, as my
heaving breaths are revealed to be fading sobs.
Jesus. How did I get to this place?
 

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Tethered (7/11)

Verdigris Bed and Breakfast, Napa, CA

The warm brightness and sweet, country
air pour in through the French windows.
I'm glad I brought Scully here. The morning
light illuminates a room filled with
antiques and pale, sprigged fabric. Normally
this sort of thing holds no attraction
for me, but this morning it is a haven.
We're as far as possible from the things in DC:
a cluttered office, a dank Alexandria
apartment, or a comfortable, utilitarian flat.
We'll have a day to breathe.

Her shadow moves across the sunlight. She
is a silhouette in sky blue satin coming
in off the balcony. My eyes aren't quite
focused, so I can't catch the expression
on her shadowed face. Seeing I'm awake,
she crosses the room to me. Scully settles
on the floor inches from me and runs the
tips of her fingers down my side to rest
lightly on my hip. She looks calm and
at long last rested.

"How are you doing?"

"Hmmm...good."

I reach over and pull her face to mine. She
gets the dragon breath; I get a taste of
mint. Morning, Sunshine.

Sunshine. Wait. I glance at the sunlight on
the wall. It can't be later than 8 AM. We're
actually awake. And we're off the clock. I
start to smile. She looks relieved. Relieved?
Oh, yeah, that. Last night seems distant and
dreamlike. I know I can't let it go; today we
talk, I promise myself. But I want us to taste a
little freedom first. This is California wine
country, no winter snow, and miracles of
miracles, no rain. We're between storms.

"Think they serve the local product with
breakfast?"

"The brochure says 'continental breakfast' but
wine would be pretty continental, even for
Napa, Mulder. Or were you referring to grapes?"

"Just my nonsense. Shall we shower and then
see what 'continental breakfast' means at
the Verdigris B&B?"

"I've already been in the shower. How about
if I get dressed and see if I can bring up
some coffee and maybe some breakfast.
It says they serve until ten."

"Okay."

Score one for Scully efficiency, zero for
the horn dog.

I don't sigh until she's left the room. Damn,
Mulder, get a grip. We aren't here for
marathon sex; this isn't a honeymoon.
And last night was good, for me at least,
despite my little post-coital episode. I
can use the shower to do a little
introspection. Clean thoughts now, boy.

This is, indeed, a great bathroom.
Full-sized soap. Fluffy towels
(no sandpaper here). Shower massage.
Yeah. I set that head to the
perfect combination of spray and pulse.
God, that feels good! Yeah, I'll lure
her in here sometime today. Although baths
are her preference, she does like to
shower with me on occasion. This one is
exquisitely decadent. I think I even feel
human today. Wonder how Scully feels?
Probably "fine". And what version of
"fine" would that be Dr. Scully? Wonder
what she'd think of a five dollar fee on
the word "fine"? Probably not worth the
contention. However, between the two of
us, I'd bet we could afford a weekend
getaway instead of just an evening's date.

Beyond fine? Where has Scully been while
I've been on my little odyssey in the Mulder
family Twilight Zone? While Mulder-at-
Thirteen has been joyriding on the road
away from his past? The short answer is with
me, holding down the fort. Making up for
my lack of focus with sheer professionalism,
And her lack of focus as well. Yeah, hers.

Scully can do an incredible job on any
assignment with or without enthusiasm.
And she's done the job. But I know her
spirit is on its own journey
and it's not a happy one. This
conundrum is going to be a hard one to
resolve without any help from Scully. And
I can't be sure of any help. It's not as
if either of us is falling apart at the
seams. I'm just extraordinarily sensitive
to all the nuances in our relationship,
now that I've shaken most of my own malaise.
And I know I've lost ground in my ongoing
efforts to stay connected, to stay
on her wavelength. Scully is tirelessly
self-sufficient. I drop the ball, and she
picks it up without complaint. The trick is
to get back in the game.

I walk back into the bedroom toweling my
hair. I hope to God it's just Scully opening
that door. Okay. She gives me an appreciative
once-over. A little stomach suck and her
smile broadens. She walks out onto the
balcony carrying a tray festooned with an
elegant coffee service and an interesting
arrangement of fruit and baked goods. Oh,
tough luck, not a McMuffin in sight.
We'll just have to make do. And I'd better
throw on some jeans unless I want to imitate
some psuedo-Greco-Roman garden sculpture.

She's pouring me coffee as I join her.
I see that besides food she has a collection of
brochures on the local sights. Mostly
wineries. So, instead of boinking our brains
out in this pretty b&b we'll get genteelly
smashed in California's finest wine tasting
rooms. Whatever the lady likes. This is for her.
She picks up a couple of shiny ads.

"Do you have any preferences, Mulder?"

"In what?"

"Wines."

"Not particularly. In a restaurant I usually
go for something red and midrange. That
usually works fine for me."

She thinks for a minute.

"Then why are we in Napa?"

"It's the most scenic, quiet, and close place
I could think of, Scully."

"You needed a little quiet, Mulder?"

Step carefully here. No prescribing her needs.

"Well, yeah. I thought we could both use
a break. This trip has been pretty frenetic.
Three cases in a row- bam, bam, bam! If we
went directly home, we'd end up doing something
either mind-bogglingly practical like *all*
three weeks of our laundry, or mind-deadenly
useless like twelve hours of "Doom"."

I *would* have to mention games.

She regards me expressionlessly for a moment
and then smirks.

"I know how compulsive you can get over
dirty laundry."

"And we really need to get your game obsession
under control, Scully."

Her eyes sparkle at my grin. One small hurdle
crossed. And we amicably plan our day. Maybe
I've just been projecting my crappy psyche
on her. This day is ours.
 
 

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Entre Nous Restaurant, Sonoma, CA

For a guy who habitually eats off of paper
products, I get an enormous kick out of dining
off fine china across from the most beautiful
woman present. Invariably Scully is, no matter
where we are. And the higher the high-end
establishment we patronize, the more amusing
it is to watch the waiters fall over themselves.
I know these guys have seen the best the
fashion and cosmetic industries can do for
a woman and they practically kiss her
feet. No question, she's the real thing.

It's hard to remember a better day than
today. Oh, sure, there have been days filled
with the excruciating joy of relief, when
the miracle of survival has been a rush in
itself. But today has been without shadows,
clean and good. We've driven through the
valley, tooling along the quiet backlanes
between the vineyards. It's been one of the
best days of the California winter. In the
Northeast this weather would seem like spring,
but here it is still unmistakably a time of
dormancy, of sleepy earth. Back East the
ground we left was hunched under a gray
blanket of old snow. Here it nestles easily
under a clear, blue sky with a hint of warmth,
dreaming.

Scully has been so tender with me, it's
almost scary. I think, at first, it was her
response to the remnants of our lovemaking
and my seemingly inexplicable bout of
melancholy. But as the morning has passed,
we both have seemed to shed the hard years.
We haven't talked of work, not one word. In
fact we haven't talked at all for much of
the time, reposing in an easy silence,
letting our contentment speak for us.

And we have touched- often. Scully isn't one
for public displays of affection. Of course,
in DC we prefer not to give any randomly
familiar eyes a good show. Let us remain
Mr. and Mrs. Spooky, shadowy denizens of
the basement. Are we or aren't we doing it?
One of the great mysteries of our time.
Today in our little vacation bubble, she's
reached for me, stroked my back, laid
a hand on my thigh as I've driven, slipped
an arm around me as we've walked on a
winery tour. As we stopped among the
casks, I wrapped my arms around her waist
and buried my face in her soft, cool hair,
with no hint of protest on her part.
After lunch at a terraced cafe, we walked
down to a stone bench on the overlook, and
we sat hip to hip savoring the pristine
air, the natural sounds of wind in flora,
the tender, verdant hills. In a natural
progression, she moved to my lap and molded
herself in my arms and we kissed and
lightly petted and drank in each other's
warmth, long and unhurriedly. The world that
has left us so wounded and where death has
breathed down our necks has been relegated
to another dimension.

And now I sit across from her in these
elegant surroundings, firelight gracing
her features. And I'm happy.

Sometimes it seems unreal that amidst
all the crap in my life, I have been
given this precious gift. The thing is
that it isn't Scully, in herself, as
precious as she is. Her love for me fills
me with awe. But...but the real wonder
is that beyond all expectations of myself
and of the few who know me at all,
*I* have actually learned to love someone.
Truly. I love someone real and there and
human. The gift is that I can be real and
there and human with her. We talk and
argue; we snipe and heal each other's
hurts. We live in each other's pocket;
we drive each other crazy. We misunderstand
each other. We like each other. We love
fiercely. I'm a workaholic, but never
before have I worked so hard as I have these
last few years to keep this wondrous thing
we have alive. My world would enter an
ice age if I let this slip away.

When did I, the poster child for cynicism,
become such a romantic?
 

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Tethered (8/11)

Verdigris Bed and Breakfast, Napa

On the balcony, the first stars are appearing,
and lights wink on throughout the valley. I
seldom stop to wait for it, but I've always
loved the deepening blue of the sky in the hour
after sunset. Maybe it's because of my
colorblindness. I have no real concept of what
I miss that other people see. How could I? Green
and red? I guess not. But blue I know I have and
I sink into the twilight. Now even more so
since that night in Victorville. It comforts me
to think of my Samantha, forever young and free,
wrapped in the velvet blue of the night. I lean
back in the balcony chair. This separate time
Scully and I have carved out for ourselves stands
still for me. The starlight falls on the quiet
evening, and I almost think I could believe in
God. I laugh a bit.

I have given Scully such grief over the years with
my snide remarks about religion, especially
Catholicism. Petty of me, but deep down I know
it's partly sprung from the grief she's given *me*
on my beliefs. She'll believe the secondhand
reports by long dead chroniclers of her faith, but
then she'll demand a report notarized by Stephen
Hawking before she'll accept my eye witness
accounts of the seemingly bizarre. Strike that.
Truly bizarre. At least, that's how I saw her
attitude for a long time. I finally got it through
my thick head that it isn't that she doesn't believe
me. It is just that her place in our universe is
to be the one to wrestle these events to the ground,
and pummel their oddity until they surrender to
reason. She was sent to debunk me; she turned that
around and became the one to fight the good fight
for rationality to support our work. But I'm
still an idiot and tend to take it all personally.

It took me years to sort out the differences in
our world views. Scully, girl scientist, embraces
a faith developed when the Earth was the center
of the universe, when frogs were supposed to spring
from the mud in spontaneous generation, and the
basic essences of the human body were the four
humors. And the Catholic Church and Christianity
as a whole never really caught up with Darwin,
Einstein and Bohr. Shit, they almost lost it with
Copernicus. So they threw up their hands
and just said, Believe Us or Burn. It didn't
work for Galileo and it sure as hell doesn't
fly now. And yet Scully keeps going to Mass. Until
recently, that is.

While I, who can believe six impossible things
before breakfast, can't wrap my mind around an
omnipotent, omnipresent, *all-loving* God creating
this crapper of a world and the theologically rigged
game that the Christians believe is Truth. Even
conscientiously ignoring my personal sorrows as
prejudicial, there is something seriously wrong with a
system that throws endless challenges at a hapless
population in the form of disease, natural disasters,
and Original Sin. Sin, which as I understand it,
was only a matter of free choice for a couple of
naive gits in the Garden of Eden anyway; none of
their descendants have had a say in it. No one can
escape Original Sin. And then the system requires
the choosing of the correct faith (Christianity,
and more specifically Roman Catholicism) out of
the myriad available on the world market, so that
the loving God who maintains this mortal coil deigns
not to send one to Hell. Like that's an attractive
choice.

I sigh. This mental rant is really old and tired.
Methinks the gentleman doth protest too much. Just the
fact that Scully sees a whole different side to
her church and her faith has kept me
turning the subject round and round. And maybe
because there *are* moments when I can almost
believe in God, my knee-jerk antagonism is
starting to seem a little ridiculous. So religion
occupies a demilitarized zone between Scully and me.
We just let it lie.

Goddamn. Why am I thinking about this now?

We've had a wonderful day. I want my glow back.
What is she fussing with inside? I want her outside
- stars, a velvet sky, romance. Come on Scully. Where
is she? She was just going to freshen up, change, pee.
Whatever.

I become aware of movement and sound in the room
behind me. Scully's footsteps: click, click, click.
The cadence is familiar. My heart sinks. Her heels
express irritation and impatience. What the hell
have I done now? The other sounds are the wardrobe
opening and closing, bags opened, clothes shaken
out with a snap. Christ. Is she leaving? Can't be.
I know the violence of movement when she pulls a
full blown, I-can't-take-any-more fit. This is more
at the level of Kersh-has-pissed-me-off-one-too-many
-times. Have I pissed her off, now? Damned if I know how.

Wait, schmuck. Don't assume it's about me. Or even
if it is, it's not about some random, careless
thoughtlessness. Think. We were going to talk. Or
I was going to give talk my best shot. Instead we
toured, cuddled, drank good wine, and ate delicious
food. I can't think that was a mistake; we needed
that interval. But the fact remains, we really need
to talk. But will she?

There's only one way to find out.

Yes, she's packing. I watch her from the French
windows. Her face is smooth and impassive. Those
shoes still crack on the hardwood floor. She's
packing briskly, like we have a flight in an hour and
a half. We. She's packing my stuff, too.  Has she
changed our flight for tonight?

"What's up, Scully?"

She glances up and continues her task.

"I'm packing."

"You know our flight leaves at 1:45 tomorrow?"

"Yes, I do know, Mulder. I, for one, don't intend
to leave it 'til morning."

I continue to watch and she continues to pack.
Jeans. Two more tees. She grabs the suit bag and
jerks the hangers over the armoire hook. Then
she stops there, leaning with her arm stretched, at
rest but not relaxed. Her arm drops, and she
stands motionless. Her shoulders droop and she
rolls the tension out of her neck as I've seen
her do a score of times after long, hard cases.
The drill is familiar and I move behind her and
slide my hands up her arms and into the tight
muscles between neck and shoulders. She sighs
and I feel the resistance leave. She lets me dig
in, separating the bundles of muscles, causing the
pain that will eventually comfort and ease.

In tiny increments I feel her relax, and I
move down her back, kneading and rolling the firm
flesh beside the column of her spine. My left
arm encircles her stomach and I know exactly
where to press my thumb to ease the vertebrae here,
here, and here. She feels relaxed in my arms but she
trembles, and instead of the sigh that usually
completes the massage, she lets her breath out in
a shaky gasp. I wrap my other arm around her,
pressing her to me, and lean to rub my cheek
against hers. She's crying.

Oh, Scully. Let me help you. Let me know what
to do.

"Scully."

She'll either spill it or walk away.

She continues to lean. I continue to hold her.

"I don't know what to say, Mulder. Nothing's
changed but nothing's the same."

I turn her around and tuck her head under my chin.

"Having you is the only thing I'm certain of." Her
voice is a bare murmur.

"That *is* certain. What has become uncertain?"
I speak as quietly.

"Everything. Or nothing. I don't know where
I'm going. It just seems endless and God! I'm just
so tired."

My hold on her tightens. I draw us to the
big, soft chair and pull her into my lap. She
feels as small as a child, as trusting
as a child. Her breathing calms.

Despite my resolve to talk, I just sit and hold
her. Honestly, I'm afraid to speak or to listen.
I told her once that she is my touchstone and
she echoed it back to me. I didn't realize what
a large burden I laid on her until I bore it in turn.
What will I say? What will I hear?

What has come undone?

"Sometimes I feel I hate the work." She doesn't
speak with anger. The snapping energy she had just
ten minutes ago has not returned. Whether this is
a good thing or a bad thing I don't know. The work,
my work. Me? No, get off it. She's turning to me. She
loves me.

But is she leaving? Does leaving the work mean
leaving me? I've avoided examining whether the
intensity of our quest is the armature of our
relationship. Maybe if that framework goes, the
clay that holds us together will fall into dust.

These are the moments to practice adulthood. She
is unhappy; listen to her. I love her. Act like it.
Find out what she needs and help her get it. Don't
be a schmuck.

"I don't want to leave here. I don't want to
leave what I've been today. Unchained. Happy.
Worthy."

"Worthy? Scully, you deserve it all. You don't
know that?"

She doesn't answer immediately, but instead shifts
herself for more closeness. She's stopped trembling.

"Yeah, maybe so." A short laugh.

"The x-files unnerve me. Me. Can you believe it?
I didn't realize how much I've clung to
my ignorance. All those years of demanding hard
evidence, knowing that it wasn't to be had. It was so
convenient. Everything could be kept at arm's length.
I know it must have looked like I was brain dead.
I'm sorry."

"Hardly," I quickly lay the word over her "sorry".
"Hardly brain dead. Someone had to keep me
grounded. Someone had to sort the real from the
speculative. If that meant filtering out the
outrageous so that you could get a clear view, so
be it. We done good, Scully."

"How much good, Mulder? I think good has
been done despite me instead of because of me. I
think I've kept you from following things to where
they lead."

"You already know what I think of that line of
thought, Scully. If this is about some guilt over
affecting *my* actions, get over it. As you are
quick to point out, you make your own decisions.
Well, so do I. And we know that nothing and
nobody stops me when I start baying after the moon."
I smile a little grimly. "Maybe you can comfort
yourself with the thought of how often I've left
you in the dust. Obviously you didn't chain me
to your side. And I handled the resulting fallout."

I can't help throwing in that jab. She's stiffened.
Zip it, Spook.

"Sorry, Scully. You have had a right to be PO'd.
I just wanted to point out that you haven't stopped
me from doing what I thought I had to do. And I'm
just sorry that I've tended to be a chickenshit
about it. There's no excuse for not looking you in
the eye and telling you my plans. But it's happened."

She relaxes and sighs. "I haven't made it easy."

"Hey, come on. Guilt is my provenance." I kiss
her hair. "Lay some more details out there. My
guess is that a lot of this stuff started after
you went to Africa. I know that you came back
really disturbed, but you never got into the
details. I think you were trying to shield me,
the poor invalid. Well, I'm all better now.
Bring it on."

She thinks for a moment. "I'm not really up to
giving you all the details. Actually, I seem to
remember it as a jumble of images. But what seemed
the most real, were the parts that were the most
bizarre."

Scully searches for where to go from there. "You
know the Catholic Church has always been big on
relics and holy things. It's not such an important
thing in modern day America, but back seven
hundred years ago people went on incredible
journeys just to touch something holy. Now,
so have I. And it scared the hell out of me."

"The ship? Yeah, that one little rubbing from one
piece of it did a number on me." To say the least.
We both tighten our grips on one another. I'm afraid
to ask. "What did it do to you?"

"I saw the sea boil and turn to blood. I had my own
little plague of locusts." She laughs without humor.
"But that doesn't tell you a thing. The miraculous
is not the clean, bright stuff of the catechism,
Mulder. It's raw and ugly. No, it's terrible and
beautiful. There were moments when the world as I
know it disappeared. There still are. No, not
exactly. Shit. This is hard."

"I'm not going anywhere. Take your time."

I listen to her silence, my senses exquisitely
aware or her. She's right. The world of experience and
sensation that the artifact opened was as frightening
as hell. Literally. I experienced *everything*. There
were no boundaries between me and the world. The
cacophony of thoughts was only the part I could label.

I can hardly hear her. "The world became chaotic. Or
maybe my mind finally saw reality for once. It has
nothing to do with science. It doesn't look like
Church dogma, either. I felt like I was seeing the
raw stuff of creation. It was blind and uncaring,
Mulder. And it was alien."

"Do you see reality that way, even now?"

"Not exactly. But something's changed. Before, I
always felt an underlying meaning to my life and
actions. Now I'm not so sure. I'm not sure of
anything. I pretty much put one foot in front of
the other and just keep going. But it's hollow.
The point of it all seems to be lost. God is lost."

It's the sighted describing color to the blind. God
has never been here in my world. And I'm at home with
chaos.

And suddenly I'm blindsided by the obvious. Scientific
Scully. Spiritual Scully. The point of intersection
is this: order. The ground under her feet is order.
God is order. Nature is ordered by natural law. But
now she is caught in an empty hole that is as
frightening and incomprehensible as the mental blast
I weathered in that padded room. While I rode the
adrenaline rush that almost burned my mind to a crisp,
she is draining out slowly before my eyes.

Life has pulled shit on her for years. She took
it. And she took it and took it and took it. She
continued to look to her God and her science. The
X-files shook her science and took the certainty
in her own reason. And life has taken all hope and
now it seems, her God. What happens when Job silently
screams to God and no one replies? I listen but I'm
a poor substitute for God. I don't know that I have
an answer.

Does her God have some sort of deal with Satan?
Are they up for a rematch? God took it all from Job:
health, family, possessions, and almost the trust
in his own righteousness. Scully has lost as much.
Seven fucking years! And it doesn't stop. She's
punch-drunk from all the blows. What sent her to
the mat? The terrible realization that if God even
exists, he's hidden in a web of alien lies? That
science has mocked her empty womb? That life has so
enraged her that she could break the moorings of
her morality and shoot an unarmed monster who wears
a human face?

Her hand reaches up to wipe the tears dropping
unnoticed. My tears, not hers. She looks sad and
calm. I wish she'd scream at heaven. Maybe I screamed
for us both in the night after my mother's autopsy.
Catharsis paved the way to finding my sister. I
don't think that Scully will have that kind of violent
epiphany. Maybe the Pfaster shooting was a warning.
Of what? That Scully needs her control? Or
that her control has an awful price?

"Thank you for today. I need to remember what life
is like. And you remind me. I'm feeding off you, now.
It's not fair, but there it is."

Eat me alive, Scully. You can have it all.
 
 

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Tethered (9/11)

The Rose and Key Tavern, London, England

Crop circles. Something in the computer
models woke a latent sense of memory.
There was something I recognized in those
patterns. Something made me want to see the
reality of them.

Never mind.

The mysterious and intricate designs in the
fields, designs I dreamed of showing Scully,
never materialized. The algorithms that
predicted their appearance must have been
missing a key part.

Maybe they were missing Scully. They'll
continue to miss her. All they got were three local
MUFON types, Edward, Jules, and Kirk, and a dour
old Yank from the FBI.

I used to think the wet countryside of England was
beautiful. Ha. The water just turns it gray.
The young geeks that spent last night with me in
a cold barley field drained me with all their
energetic excitement. I was their god. Was I ever
that entranced by minutiae? That taken by the
seemingly endless possibilities? It hardly fazed
them that it was all for naught. The fields were
as soggy and pristine this morning as when we put
them to bed last night. No crop circles, just crops.

I declined their invitation to breakfast. I was
nearly rude about it, but I suddenly couldn't
take any more of their interest and their optimism.
Of course, then their good-natured thanks and
good wishes shamed me and I slunk off to London.

So I nurse a morning ale and listen to my depressed
thoughts.

This place is a hole. Maybe it always was. My
friend, James, another American marooned at Oxford,
brought me here on my twenty-first birthday. Not
that it's the occasion in Britain that it would be
in most states. But we got "sodding pissed" as our
brother in inebriation, Colin, said. He
really liked giving us an earful of British
profanity; he seemed to think it was part of our
education. At least I had friends; I wasn't the high
school geek I left behind in New England. I was a
college geek in a town that, in an offhand manner,
valued intelligent geeks.

I look around the place. I'm not imagining it;
it has come down in the world. The patrons make it
plain that I'm an unwanted intruder here. I ignore
them. Somehow I imagine these middle-aged alcoholics
drinking here on a Monday morning are the same
individuals as the sullen, young drunks that raised
a glass with me on my majority. That sounds like
dark, poetic justice to me in my present frame of
mind. The more we change the more we stay the same.
They're still drunks and I'm still a dysfunctional
bastard.

When I'm with Scully, I feel like my awkward,
youthful self grew into a man *worth* the
attention of a woman like Scully. If that makes
any sense. And so I really wish she were here
with me, today. I wanted show her something
mysterious and beautiful in the fields, to
show her the London I know, the quirky corners
of this old and august city. But the thought
of being here with me, chasing phantoms,
was dust in her mouth.

Even the ale here is second rate. Okay, chug it,
Mulder. Got to catch a plane.

It's still raining, darkening the charcoal
gray walls, already dark with the grime of
several hundred years. For a moment the
street is empty. But here comes a lone taxi,
in all its black, utilitarian glory.

"Heathrow, please."

The cab driver nods. "What terminal?"

"British Airways."

"Right, mate."

I don't think I'll ever get warm. It's been cold
ever since I left with Scully's chilly words in
my ears. A simple request for a favor becomes
an occasion for another round of the dreary
bickering of a relationship now teetering.
We've each lost our compass. She has
lost her control and I feel like I have lost her.

When we got back from California she stayed in
my apartment, in my bed, for five nights. No
sex. We'd get home from work, eat in silence,
she'd fall into bed and hit the pillow almost
asleep on contact. My insomnia was back with
a vengeance. But in the morning, after I had a brief
respite, I'd find her still asleep, clinging to
me like a limpet.

Late on the sixth evening, I was kicked back on the
couch mindlessly surfing, Scully long in bed, when
suddenly she was there in front of me, naked. In the
time of our intimacy, sudden, playful
nudity has been part of our sexual repertoire. This
was not playfulness.

I don't know how to describe her expression. It
was anger, pain, and longing. It made me think
of the days of her cancer. My heart pounded in my
throat. But even so, I was instantly hard. No
words were needed for what was happening between us.
No caresses. She released me with minimal effort,
just opened the fly and mounted me in one decisive
movement. Two, three, four strokes and I felt
I would explode. And I did. I couldn't have
stopped if it meant my life. I was stunned.

I could still feel the tension between her legs.
Whatever drove her to that impulse had not been
placated. She stiffly climbed off of me and
withdrew to my room, still without a word. I
was struggling for words to even describe to
myself what had just happened.

The Jungians say that the more you deny your
shadow, deny the collection of traits you fear
and dislike, the stronger and more diabolic
it becomes. Scully's persona is so clean
and bright that her shadow is fearsome, as
Donnie Pfaster learned to his detriment. Me, she
loves. So her shadow just fucked me. That's okay.
Come, let the dark thing out to play, Scully. You've
seen mine. Does my shadow scare you? It can play
rough, too, but it's never seen you afraid.

She reappeared dressed, a steel rod up her back,
furious. And I knew the fury was aimed at
herself. I, however, would bear the brunt of
it because I wanted her to stay and she wouldn't.
Not while I was the reminder that she had given
in to her pain, that she had lost control.

Two days later she disappeared. Family emergency,
my ass. She phoned Skinner. Skinner. I stood in
his office, ready to wrestle that phone out of
his hands. Dammit, Scully! Let me come get you,
no questions. But she fled down the phone lines,
away from me, pursuing this madness.

Control. Jesus, Scully! Use me, morning and night,
like a sex toy, a punching bag, like a scourge. Don't
go off with that nicotine stained bastard on some
quixotic mission. What the *hell* were you thinking?
C.G.B. Spender is the prince of lies. You know that.
Why the dance with the devil?

God knows what his ultimate game is now. Always
puzzles within puzzles. I don't believe for a
minute that that disk she got for him has a goddamn
thing to do with a panacea for the world's ills.
If Scully was anywhere near her normal form she
would have known that. So he's got his hot, greasy
hands on the original whatever it is, palming a
blank off on Scully like some damned Maleeni.

God, I so blew it when she returned with the
smell of smoke in her clothes. The anger and
fear and hurt roared through me, and it was all
I could do to contain it all. So I lost the moment.
We stood in that abandoned office. Her eyes
flew all around its empty space. All evidence
was gone. He used you, Scully. Don't look for
anything but self-interest in his sad-dog eyes.
That wasn't what she needed to hear from me.
There's nothing wrong with Scully's mind; it's
her heart that's searching.

The cab window blurs. It's either my breath or
I'm tearing up again. I feel the fist of anxiety
in my gut. It is unrelenting; it wakes with me,
such sleep as I get, and puts me down at night.
Every minute takes me closer to the need for "the
talk", round two. But I think words will just
bounce off our walls now.

If it comes to it, I don't know that it's in me to
leave her. But I think her sense of duty will tie
her to the work, hated or not, and to me loved or
not. And her spirit will continue to die by inches.
That's the thought I can't stand. I love her so
goddamned much.

Old Smokey. Fuck him and his black lungs. He clings
to his tattered illusions of omnipotence and dares
to draw Scully back into his filthy games. Cancer
Man, indeed. He's a blight, like one of those
fungal diseases that kills whole forests. Scully
didn't need him waltzing into her life offering a
medical pie-in-the-sky, tempting her generous nature.
As if she needs that kind of redemption. She just needs
to find in herself that small, bright flame, the one
I warm myself at. It's there; it's banked but it's
there.

The cab driver weaves his way easily through the mess
that is Heathrow. My chest tightens with every moment
that brings me closer to her. I ache to see her; I
shrink from what she may say. "This isn't working
anymore, Mulder. I don't believe in the work. I don't
know that I ever did. I need to get away. I need the
life I left behind. I need. I need..." I don't know
that I'm enough to fill this void in her. But nothing
but she will fill the void in me.

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

Tethered (10/11)

Washington, DC

The streets pass me unseen. My mind hasn't
turned off for thirty-eight hours and a
thousand miles. During the long flight
across the Atlantic my mind felt fevered,
and it played all the recent, troubled moments
with Scully in a continuous loop.

I'm at that place where my mind turns over
a million possibilities and no solutions.

I've lived with pain and self-doubt most
of my life. But the past seven years
have gotten me past my personal superstition
that I'm unlovable. Scully has loved me; I know
this. But there can come a point where pain
can overcome love.

That point hasn't come for me, but I fear it
may have for Scully. That we've gotten this
far with the loads that we carry, that we've
shared a measure of joy and passion, is
something that I really never expected and
couldn't have imagined before our years together.
So I'm way ahead in the happiness department.
All my regrets center on where this journey
has left her. Her protests not withstanding,
I can't imagine that her life wouldn't have
been better off without blending it with mine.
And yeah, I'd pay any multiple of five bucks on
that observation.

Even so, losing her would be a bullet through
my heart.

Christ. I haven't even seen her today and
I'm burying our relationship.

Think, Mulder.

I won't settle for the idea that our
relationship is terminal. Okay, things are not
good. But irredeemable? Have I blown
all this out of proportion, my fear working up
momentum like a rat on a wheel? If I let
the fear in my gut do all the thinking,
I'll make things so intolerable she'll leave
in self-defense.

Okay, don't jump ahead of yourself, Spook.
Maybe these days apart have actually helped
things. She certainly seemed to function
better on that disappearing prostitute
stakeout while I was away sorting out
Ellen Adderly's Jeckyl and Hyde problem.
At least I wasn't there to rub her
raw. I can't say it helped me, but
maybe it was something Scully needed.

Maybe, hope against hope, a corner will be
turned and we'll find a way out of this morass.

I find myself turning into the parking lot of
Washington National Hospital. Okay, why have
I ended up here? There's no reason she'd be
at this hospital today. That autopsy report
has probably been sitting on my desk for two
days with all the loose ends tied up neatly
and everything explained. But here I am
chasing her down on her *Saturday*
schedule, as if no time has elapsed
since I last spoke to her. I guess time
loses reality for me when we're apart.
Pathetic.

Well, crap. I don't feel like diving back into
the late afternoon traffic. I remember that this
hospital's cafeteria isn't the usual black hole.
It does have liquid slag for coffee,
but hey, given my jetlag and lack of sleep,
coffee that growls is probably a good thing.
Maybe I can stay awake for a few more hours.

It feels good to stretch my legs and walk on a
lawn that is relatively dry. And then there is the
sun with clouds chasing across the sky.
My spirits may be recovering despite myself. Whatever
will be, will be. Jeez. I must be looped from sleep
deprivation if I'm quoting Doris Day. But, yeah,
I do feel a bit calmer.

Scully and I have handled worse crap than this...
this untamed shadow thing. If there's one thing
I know about, it's the beast within. Me and my
own shadowy friend have gotten pretty tight
over the years.

Personally, I was damned glad to see her own
beasty show up in the bowels
of First Person Shooter. Scully could have
drilled Matreya the Bitch Goddess with the
sheer firepower of her eyes. Scully looked
like a colossus to me, as I lay flat
on the ground, watching her weapon spitting
virtual death over my head. Yee-hah!

Oh, yeah, that was a moment to remember.

Fire and power.

Seriously, I do see a nameless power in
Scully. I might as well call it God.
Though I'm slow to admit it, the sheer
strength of Scully's response to life
is my best evidence of divinity.  Then
there's that starlit grove, that play
yard of innocent souls, which owed nothing
to the manipulations of alien mythology.
I'd swear on my hypothetical soul that
what I saw in the night was both larger
and more intimate than any mainstream
religion. More truly holy, if you will.

For her sake, I think I need to stop my
theological nit-picking. She needs her
godliness. I need her godliness, too. If
all I get in a lifetime is a vision of
my sister's spirit and the presence of
Scully, that's enough religion for me.

So this spiritual warrior is going to fuel
up on a cup of joe. Then I'll raise my mighty
cell phone and call my personal goddess.
Somehow I'll get this right.

I head for the lobby doors.

"Excuse me!"

For some reason I turn without the least
sense of surprise. I could be a plant turning
toward the sunlight.

Scully.

"Hey."

"Mulder?" She stands there, the most precious,
shining piece of my life.

"I was just looking for you." I've been looking
for weeks. And this moment and place is where she
is to be found.

"But you're supposed to be in England."

"I'm back."

"What happened?"

"Nothing." I feel a rueful smile coming over my
face. "There was no event. No crop circles.
Big waste of time."

Scully shows no satisfaction in being proven
right. She glances down and sighs.

"Maybe sometimes nothing happens for a reason,
Mulder."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Nothing. The
negative that defines the positive?

She is suddenly smiling, relaxed and
happy to be with me. And I thought I'd never
be warm again.

"Nothing. Come on; I'll make you some tea."
 
 

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

Mulder's apartment, Alexandria, VA

After a quiet and thoughtful drive to
my place she started talking. And she's
still talking.

She's seen patterns. And she can't
wait to lay them all out for both of us to
examine. Her words tumble over each other
and her mind hums with excitement. This
is the kind of excitement that a satisfying,
scientific solution normally gives her.
But what excites her now is her life,
its order. The smallest events sparkle
like pieces of a mosaic.

It started with a misplaced medical chart.
And the line of events led to some long
buried memories that I can tell still
cause her some shame. Participating
in someone's adultery has no place in
her moral character now. But the shame is
finally draining out. Scully has faced
who she is and how far she has gone
beyond the girl who worshiped the
facile self-assurance of her mentor,
Dr. Waterson.

Daniel Waterson is a loser. Such a
trite word for the enormity of the
life he's wasted. He's had a
brilliant career, his journal articles
would pile up to my armpit, and I'm
sure his medical society awards would
sink a yacht. Oh, and he has loads of
money. But a loser he is. Maybe a
trite word is appropriate. Other than
his career, what does he have but a
broken marriage, a bitter daughter,
and yearnings after a brilliant, naive
student he taught and bedded long ago?
Nothing that I can see. He didn't
even have the balls to pick up the
phone and say, "Hello, Dana", let
alone speak his heart. Ten years
in DC and not a word. Loser.

*She's* not stuck in the past. She's
faced down life and death and
proved herself their equal.

Today's story is told very differently
from the orderly way she lays out facts
in a case, or even the account of
ordinary events.

She weaves a tale of mundane elements
of her weekend that somehow combine
into something miraculous. She got
swept up in a series of events that
revealed new meaning for her, revealed
the order in the chaos. An old lover,
a new friend, a wounded, young woman,
ready to heal. And the gift of renewal.

I hug that knowledge and keep listening.

So how did all this splendid, mundane
weekend become a pilgrimage?

Now she arrives at a little temple with a golden
Buddha. Who speaks to her. Or not. Buddha? Not
the Blessed Virgin? Not Michael the warrior?
St. Jude? No not him; there's nothing hopeless
about Scully. Jesus?

"Buddha."

She looks at me in mock annoyance.
And ignores my little interjection.
Nothing is slowing her down this evening.

"Even before I'd gotten to that point I had
the sense that something strange was going on. A
couple things. For a while I thought
something was happening to my inner ear.
Almost like vertigo. Or anti-vertigo. Incredible
steadiness. And yet I was a klutz, stumbling,
making mistakes, having a near-miss accident.
I...I couldn't quite put my finger
on it, until I talked to Colleen. She called
it a sense of expanded time.
More stuff fitting into less time, but the exact
opposite of fast motion. Weird, Mulder. But not
frightening."

"And you followed some woman to that temple,
Scully? Now that sounds strange."

"Well, that's the other thing. I kept seeing her,
a tall blonde. First I saw her at the
hospital. Then I'd swear she stopped me from
getting totaled on the way to Colleen's. Then
when I saw her on the street in that Asian
neighborhood, I thought, this is it. No way is
this a coincidence. So I try to catch up with
her. The expanded time thing is in full force.
Suddenly she's gone and I'm walking into this
beautiful, enclosed garden."

"Tell me some more about your vision, Scully."

She stops and gives me an evaluating look.
Suddenly she remembers who she's talking to.

I smile and raise my hands: I'm unarmed, Scully.

"Hey, I'm open to revelation, too. You were kind
enough to accept what I told you about Victorville.
I'm not going to cast aspersions on your experience.
Besides, no one passed an offering plate in this
place? That's got to count for something."

She smiles and nods.

"This part gets tricky. No, I didn't see Buddha, or
God in a burning bush for that matter. I am
now prepared to give some credence to the old
story about your life passing before your eyes
when you're drowning, Mulder."

Drowning. Not a bad description of her state these
past weeks.

"Not everything in my life, but in a very short period
a lot of aspects of my life linked together. Meeting
you, loving you, my family, the abduction, my cancer,
Emily. The vision said, This is you. It is all good,
all the pain, the doubt, the love, the happiness.
Everything came together to be you at this moment.
All paths lead to this. This is the meaning."

She grasps my hand. "It's like creation. God
created it and it was good. And this *is* good,
Mulder."

I shiver. I have a glimpse of God's finger touching
her.

I look in her serene face and have no impulse to argue
it. Seeing her at peace just makes me happy.

However, I'm not particularly at home on the
rarefied heights. We get up to get refills.
I occupy myself with the practicalities of tea,
while she continues telling me about Maggie and her
sad-sack dad.

Maggie and Daniel. Christ! Scully has such
compassion. From my point of view, Scully did
her part by exiting their lives as quickly and
humanely as she could once she had gotten her thinking
straight after med school. Daniel was the one who had
broken his marriage vows, who wallowed in his self-pity.
And, yes, I do feel some sympathy for Maggie, as Scully
describes her, but face it, Daniel failed as a dad as
he failed at everything else on a personal level.
Maggie is an adult and should get therapy like the
rest of us, get on with her life. But Scully is ready
to spend the time on closure for her.

Maybe I should do something about letting go of this
anger. I haven't even met these people. Besides
Scully seems to be shedding the old feelings just
fine. She has another point to make.

"Actually, the experience in the temple didn't
just pull me out of this funk I've been in."

Funk.

Okay, I'll accept that word. As long as she's out of
that personal hell, er, funk, now.

She continues. "The final product of the event was the
realization that Daniel was in greater danger than
anyone knew."

"Which is when you got Colleen to hook you up
with the aura man?"

There is a split second of defensiveness in her
face, then a flush because there is nothing to
defend. I grin and a second later so does she.

"Hey, I was right. After Dr. Kopeikan tried to put
his foot down, and Maggie vetoed him, something
made him order a couple more tests. What do you
know? Totally unexpected pulmonary hypertension.
Side effect of the med cocktail he was on."

We return to the couch for another round of tea and
mysticism. Scully's lids are starting to droop, while
I'm fired up. On tea? On the sheer, messy exuberance
of life.

"I just find it hard to believe."

"What part?"

"The part where I go away for two days and your
whole life changes."

Stifled yawn. "I didn't say my whole life changed."

True. Maybe just mine did.

What I say is: "You speaking to God in a Buddhist
temple.  God speaking back."

"And I didn't say that God spoke back.  I said that
I had some kind of a vision."

Adorable nitpicker.

"Well, for you, that's like saying you're having
David Crosby's baby." Oh, shit. Maybe I *am* too
tired for this conversation.

But she's smiling.

"What is it?"

"I once considered spending my whole life with
this man.  What I would have missed."

Fear. Disillusionment. Cancer.

No, don't break the mood. What about
Frohike's cheese steaks? Steve and Edie? Sex
with me?

"I don't think you can know.  I mean, how many
different lives would we be leading if we made
different choices. We don't know."

"What if there was only one choice and all the
other ones were wrong?  And there were signs
along the way to pay attention to." She's
sleepily insistent.

"Mmm. And all the... choices would then lead
to this very moment. One wrong turn, and... we
wouldn't be sitting here together. Well, that
says a lot. That says a lot, a lot, a lot.
That's probably more than we should be getting
into at this late hour."

At least for one of us. I'm talking to myself.

I pull up my old Navajo blanket to cover her.
I can't resist straightening that bright,
stubborn lock. She doesn't stir. Spiritual
revelation is tiring stuff.

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

Tethered (11/11)
 

Mulder's apartment, Alexandria, VA

Gotta take a shower.

I'm wearing clothes I've worn for a day
and a half and every irritating pull
of fabric on skin is reminding me of that.

Scully sleeps peacefully where I left
her, her face missing the lines
between her brows that she's worn
for months. I resist the urge to wake
her in Sleeping Beauty fashion. Just
because I want her to open her eyes and
look back at me isn't a good enough
reason to disturb her; just because
I want to kiss her.

To the shower, Mulder. That just might
make me bedable later. It's funny how my
sex life seems to revolve around the
bathroom again. I think I spent a
quarter of my adolescence there. Things
are looking up these days;  at least sex
is not always a solo sport.

I quietly remove some towels from the
hall cupboard, slip into the bathroom, and
start peeling off the layers. I left the
bathroom in good shape before I flew to
England. I went into this cleaning rampage
to kill the time between packing and my
solitary drive to Dulles. Even I can only
play so many computer games and I had
started imagining Scully going through
Lara Croft's paces. And since on Saturday
that was exactly where I didn't want to go,
instead, I did something really off
the wall: I scrubbed down my bathroom,
top to bottom. Almost like Scully does.
In her own bathroom I mean.

So let's get steam-cleaned tonight; I
crank up the hot water tap. My skin flushes
and stings but in a moment it feels good.
This is a humidity I can get behind. My
bones warm up just as they froze in the
chill dampness of West England. I am finally
warm and clean.

Can it really be as easy as this? I search
my body and my psyche for hidden corners
of darkness. Nada.

No fist of tension in my stomach,
no tight band around my brow, my lungs
expand and fill easily with air; my
limbs are free. I'm made of flesh instead
of stone. For some minutes I let the
hot water beat on my back and shoulders.

The light goes out. "Shit!"

"Shhh. It's just me."

A globe of light floats in the clouds of
steam and the curtain twitches away from the
tiles. Smiling the smile of a Renaissance
Madonna, displaying the body of a Renaissance
Venus, Scully holds a fat pillar candle in
a dish. The candle's glow warms her face,
her breasts and the curve of her belly. She
stands, her eyes gleaming with flecks of
light, holding the dish in both hands like
a gift.

She's found the stash of candles where I hid
them all after the attack by Donnie Pfaster.
Another experience is now in its place.

"It's better to light a candle than...?" I say
lightly. We both know this is a hurdle crossed,
no need to belabor it. She smiles and sets the candle
on the counter; she won't place heavy significance
on the moment either.

"No. I'm not cursing the darkness at the moment."

My goddess is now prosaically rummaging through the
bathroom jumble drawer. She turns back with her
hands full of orange shower gel, a puffy scrubber,
a loofa and herbal shampoo. My drawer but her jumble.
Now I'll smell like something called Happy, all
citrusy. Fine. I'll enjoy messing with Skinner's
head tomorrow. If I stick close to her at
the AM meeting, we'll be a potpourri of sweet
orange, Polo, herbs and Pleasures. But
really, Skinner has given up on the
speculative looks. He's either made up his mind
about us or he just won't give us the satisfaction
of showing curiosity. Of course, it's quite
possible he just doesn't give a damn.
We're not exactly the center of the universe.

Scully starts working over my hot, rebellious
skin with the loofa and gel. Christ, Scully,
not so hard! She's merciless. I think she's
convinced that the epidermis is
untrustworthy and can't be left to its own
devices. Water and soap are not going to cut
it. This job needs steel wool! It's gotta
be a doctor thing, all that scrubbing before
and after the examinations. Oh, but it hurts
so good!

She's quiet and the rasp of her strokes echo
in the stall.

We haven't gotten to the point in our sex life
to need much in the way of kinky diversions
to keep us entertained. Yeah, we've had some
fun with Scully's vibrator and our short-lived
experiment with the tantric handbook. But no
role playing, no fuzzy cuffs, no flirting
with disaster in public places. However in the
privacy of my own head, I feel a pleasant submission
in the bath or shower. She's in charge of my body
here. She turns me this way and that, flays my
hide, and I'm obedient in a way that I never
am in any other setting.

She can't reach my head comfortably to wash my
hair, so as she reaches for the shampoo, I kneel
at her feet. I nuzzle her naval and kiss her
invisible treasure trail.  Hitting a ticklish spot
just as I knew I would, she laughs and squirms
away from my lips. She grabs a fistful of hair
and pulls my head back, my face slapped by hot
water. Her laugh lines crinkle but then
they smooth as she bends closer. Now
I'm sheltered by her face; her lips are
hard on mine, her wet locks clinging to my ears.
We suck and chew each others' lips. Our mouths
open wide and we grapple with no finesse, barely
remembering to breathe. I welcome the pain in my
knees, the cramp in my neck because love isn't
always sweet and warm. This is my Scully
bruising my lips, these are my fingers digging into
the cheeks of her ass. It beats the hell out of the
phantom-limb pain of love gone dry.

"I'm sorry, Mulder."

"I've missed you."

Said in unison, two lines of music making a
minor chord.

Her lips soften and her tongue apologetically
swipes my lip, then my chin. Her grip loosens
on my head; my hands go up to encircle her
waist, as I sit back on my heels and pull
her down to straddle my lap. My hands start to
slide up and down her, shoulder to thigh,
making up for the time lost these past weeks.
Her skin feels like new territory.
How can we waste time on things like second
guesses, regrets, and mind-numbing computer
games?

And I know that she knows that I know that it
isn't the rough kisses she's sorry for.

"Love means never having to say you're sorry."

"If you start quoting 'Love Story' at me I'll have
to hurt you." And bites my earlobe to prove it,
making me jump. "Besides I'm serious."

"I know. So am I, Scully. 'Never' may be too
sweeping, but you might as well beg forgiveness
for coming down with pneumonia as apologize
for reacting to all our bad shit." I sneak up on
her ear via her jugular and prove myself the
more restrained of us when I refrain from
marking her in kind. My tongue traces the
whorls and I gently tug on a simple knot
earring with my teeth. She likes it. She hums.

But she's not totally diverted.

"Mmmm...Mulder. Those things aren't equivalent."

"Close enough."

And I stop the argument by giving our tongues
something else to do. I really am serious about
wasting no more time. Every inch of her
skin, the swells, the textures, the
heat, imprints on my own. I feel as if I can read
the patterns of her palms from their firm
pressure on my shoulder blades. The tips of
her breasts push pleasure buttons in my chest.
My woman is in my arms and everything else is
just crap.

Her arms loosen and she sighs. Well, fuck.

I try to suppress my irritation; I've had
enough of talk, especially of regrets. But...

"If you really need to talk, we'll stop and
talk."

She really doesn't look all that much into
talk, herself. She glances down and seems
to weigh the sight of my sulking manhood.
Some signs of irritation a guy just can't
suppress.

"So sue me. I'm Catholic, Mulder. Just
forgive me, all right?"

"Well, yeah, I forgive you." I take a
cautious beat. "That's all you need?"

"That's it. Anything else I'll take to
confession."

Poor Fr. McCue. He gets the leftover moral
analysis and I get the pleasures of the
flesh. It hardly seems fair. I guess it's
all in what we each sign up for.

The water seems a little cooler and I
don't think it's just me. Screw the hair.
Thank God we never got around to applying
the shampoo. By all indications, I'll need
to shower again in the morning anyway.

"Screw the hair. We're almost out of hot
water, Mulder." We think as one, Scully
and I.

"Yeah. Let's dry off and get somewhere warm
and comfortable. Like bed."

I admire the dewy length of her back
and thighs as she steps out of the shower.
And that firm, rosy butt. She grabs a towel
and bends over the sink, buffing a clear
spot in the mirror to see how her make-up
stands. She starts to work with a cream-soaked
cotton pad.

I'm just waiting to pounce. Tonight I'm an
ass man. I bless Scully's shapely cheeks and
her sense in not bemoaning anything about
her lovely bottom. I never catch her frowning
at the mirror, her chin tucked over her
shoulder, worrying about the fit of her
slacks. One of these days I'm going to
embarrass myself, frozen and staring at the
view of her hips retreating down a Bureau
corridor. They're just that fine.

She's not surprised to feel me press up against
her. No part of me is sulking now. She gently
arches back into me but doesn't
miss a beat in the job at hand. If I want to
maintain the mood, I'll respect the process.
Scully has serious issues with smudged make-up.
Taking up a towel, I stay close and gently mop
the moisture off her from the ribs down, taking
care not to jostle her arms. I take a moment
to blot myself as well.

Make-up removal done, freckles revealed,
everything revealed, she turns and moves into
my arms. Mmmm. Ass man? The front has a lot to
offer, too. The cooling-off air and raised arms
do interesting things to her breasts in the
dim candlelight. As attractive as those effects
are, I feel her tiny shivers and would prefer
her warm and dry. Just so I'm sure those shivers
are for me, understand. I remove her hands from
my neck, lightly kiss her, and step out of the
bathroom.

I return in a moment, arms full of fresh towels
(the good ones) and the fluffy robe I bought
to reside in my closet. The bathroom light is back
on, and her drier and round brush are laying ready.
However she's armed with my bruiser that
she's dubbed Hurricane Andrew. In manly-man
fashion I bought the drier with the biggest
amps, the one that can double as a hot
leafblower. Hey, it dries my hair in two minutes
flat. It's also singed my ears before I taught
Scully to keep it at a certain distance.

After toweling off her shoulders and her
admirable breasts, I hold out the robe and
she ceremoniously dons it like a full length
mink. I barely get to wrap a scrap of terry
cloth around my hips before she's attacking
my wet scalp. She's beat my drying time by
thirty seconds. I *think* I've still got
eyebrows.

Once last year, under protest, she allowed me
to come at her with Big Andy in the interest
of making a plane on time. Never again. I've
never heard such bitching in my life. Three
days of it in Des Moines, then she returned
to an emergency moisturizing treatment at her
salon in Georgetown that she scheduled on the
airphone for 4:30 PM, an hour after we
disembarked at Dulles. I bought an honorable
peace by taking her and her newly radiant
hair to a swank, downtown eatery. Her hair
dresser agreed that it was only right.

She trusts me to use the more sedate drier on
her up to a point, but takes over to put in those
special touches like curl and lift- you know, the
actual hair style. Nice. I don't see the point
since I plan to do things to her that will make
neat hair a moot point. But it makes her happy.

Just another little, shiny piece of the mosaic.

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

Scully radiates a sumptuous pleasure as she
sways and rocks and twists slowly at our juncture.
I'm leaning, helpless, against two pillows and
the headboard where she's arranged me. My flesh
in her is screaming but the rest of me is
mesmerized by the sight of her in the moonlight.
My body is drained by lack of rest and my mind is
in this sleep-deprived state where I can assert
no will at all. My release is at her whim. I'm
going to die here, woman!

Don't stop.

I had used up the last of my reserves ministering
to her. It felt like I worked her for hours. She
came. She came until she seemed to be in pain;
her cries resonated in my ears. Every trick, every
touch: I played her, gently, roughly, nonstop
riffs up and down the scale. Her body tried to escape
the confines of its skin while her thighs anchored
me to her, hungry for lips and tongue. I could hardly
breathe. I didn't care. A beautiful little death.

The day had caught up with me. But by God, she
got my best anyway.

With a last convulsive arch of her back, we both
were still. My face was still pillowed between her legs
and I could feel the dying spasms of her release.
The silence roared, or maybe it was our heaving lungs.
I rallied my last bit of energy and crawled up her
body and sealed myself to her side. Cool, damp skin met
its mate. The remaining hot, hard, painful bit of me
announced its displeasure and I groaned. My hand had
pity and reached down to give Junior a comforting grip.
There, there. I'll be with you in a minute, Big Guy.
And met her hand arriving at the same destination.

Ah, Scully to the rescue. I hated giving her
such a mundane task as a quick hand job but things were
getting bad. Plus she'd take it as a reflection on
her manners if I brought myself off at this point.
Her hand felt strong and friendly around me but
didn't start to stroke. I opened my eyes to find her
smiling with no sign of sleep in her face.

"If I climb on board will you still be conscious
enough to enjoy it?"

Hell, yeah.

So that's how I come to be dying by inches in
the grip of this smiling devil disguised as the
goddess of love.

"Please."

What a tiny, pathetic croak. She must be a goddess
after all because everyone knows demons don't have
mercy. Great Goddess in heaven, she's speeding up.
Halleluia! More...that's it. She's driving hard
and deep. My hips spring up to meet hers, over and
over, some bit of energy tapped from my libido's
secret stash, and finally my shout is swallowed
in the mouth covering mine.

Man, oh, man.

My lungs feel like they've done twelve miles. The
last remaining neurons in my brain are firing off
in a pretty display. I feel her quiet weight
pressing me into the sheets as we lay still and sated
for some unknowable minutes.

Then she begins to move. Her lips meander over
my face and she's whispering something I know I
should be listening to. Focus.

"This is where I want to be. I love you. I choose
the journey...choose this."

"You. Choose you. Love..." My tongue is unwieldy.
All the words are used up.

Just, "Scully."

"Yes, Mulder. Always with you."

Her weight lifts off me and the bed. Darkness. But
not heavy. The darkness isn't heavy here. It floats
with little gold and colored pieces that just about
make a picture. I'm in a twilight world where chaos
reigns, yet it all makes sense. Scully and I live
in the same country. This is our land. The one
where we float linked to each other by tiny gold
threads as the starlit sky wheels around us. Let
go of everything but those gold strands. They knit
us to the truth.
 
 

End.
 

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