A Bed Made of Crop Circles
by Innisfree

E-MAIL: katclar73@yahoo.com
CLASSIFICATION: SRA, MSR
SUMMARY: I am all kinds of in love with that 
conversation by the car and Mulder saying "Let it 
try." I think we all know what happened when Scully 
came home that night. ATTHS. I had to do it.
RATING: NC-17 (language, sexual situations)
SPOILERS: XF2: IWTB
KEYWORDS: MSR, Post-Film
ARCHIVE: Yes -- just e-mail me.
DISCLAIMERS: They're not mine, I'm not making any 
money, and there is no intent to infringe any lawful 
copyrights or trademarks.
_____________________________________________

Axes. He'd been dreaming of axes when he awoke with a 
start on the couch. Dreaming of one hovering over him, 
not swinging, not even moving in any way, just poised 
right over his neck like it was waiting for something. 
For what, he couldn't be sure. But he remembered the 
fear building in him as he waited for the blade to 
fall in his dream. He'd felt his entire body tensing, 
and then tensing even harder, until finally his eyes 
had flown open and he'd realized that, unlike last 
night, it wasn't real.

Sitting here in the dim light of one yellowing floor 
lamp, he experienced a brief instant of confusion 
about the time and the place. For a fleeting second, 
he thought he was back in his old apartment at Hegal 
Place, waking in the middle of the night the way he 
used to do when the couch was his bed and he didn't 
even own a pair of pajamas. Waking alone and hearing 
the quiet all around him as loudly as if it were 
taunting him.

But no. That was a different time and a different 
place. He'd been a different man. Years gone by. Back 
then, he'd often woken with the feeling that something 
was missing, that there was something he needed to 
find. Now, a lifetime later, whenever he woke with 
that feeling, he knew exactly what was missing.

He mopped a few lines of perspiration away from his 
forehead as he checked his watch. It was just past 
10:30 and long past darkness falling. She should have 
been home by now, he thought to himself. He'd been 
waiting for her, reluctant to bother her with a phone 
call, and must have finally succumbed to sleep. To 
sleep, perchance to dream of axes and endings. He 
shuddered.

Last night, he had been busy collecting another near-
death experience to add to his mental scrapbook, and 
Scully had accompanied him to the hospital for the 
ritual stitching and bandaging of wounds. After that, 
Skinner had driven the two of them home and she had 
settled him upstairs in the bed. The painkillers 
weren't strong enough to keep him from noticing that 
she was still wearing her clothes when she lay down 
next to him, settling on top of the comforter. But 
they were strong enough to keep him from protesting. 
She'd been just close enough to watch over him. Not 
quite close enough to touch. 

For several nights before that, she hadn't come home 
at all. A woman of her word. He suspected she'd been 
sleeping at the hospital in one of those rooms they 
kept free for doctors putting in long shifts. And he 
hadn't been surprised to discover that he didn't sleep 
well when she wasn't with him.

He checked his watch again, suddenly worried and 
nervous. Was she not coming home tonight? Perhaps he'd 
misunderstood their conversation earlier that morning. 
He thought they'd found some kind of peace today, 
accepting that they are the people they have always 
been, darkness held at bay but never far away from 
either of them. He thought he'd made it clear that, 
whatever path she chose now, whether or not she could 
allow herself to believe, he chose her. He chose her 
and they would be alright together.

The sound of a key turning in the lock interrupted the 
trajectory of the panic beginning to move through his 
mind. He turned his head just in time to see the thin 
rays of light in the room sharpening the angles of her 
cheeks and her jaw, just before she caught sight of 
him and rather shyly dropped her chin to let long red 
hair fall like a curtain over her face.

Home, he thought. She's home.

"What's up, Doc?" he asked her softly, not a trace of 
the bitterness that had infused the same words that 
morning.

She sighed.

"Long day."

"Yeah?"

"Yes. I'm, ummmm... I'm sorry I didn't call."

He simply shook his head and smiled.

"It's okay. I just wasn't sure... well, you know." He 
trailed off and found himself suddenly fascinated by 
the planks on the hardwood floor just beneath his 
feet.

She dropped her black bag on the table and walked 
slowly to cover the short distance between the door 
and the couch. In the corner of his eye, he could see 
that she'd placed her hands in the pockets of her 
coat.

"You weren't sure if I was coming home tonight."

He managed to lift his head and find her eyes, even in 
this interior twilight. 

"Well..." His voice cracked in the middle of the word. 
"It's been a tough week. I tried not to make my panic 
face."

The edges of her mouth quirked upward slightly and she 
nodded.

"Yes," she answered him a little tentatively. "Tough 
week."

He placed his hand on the cushion next to him and 
inclined his head in that direction.
 
"Take your coat off and stay awhile." He tried to 
sound playful when he said it but, to his ears anyway, 
it came out sounding more like a plea.

He thought he saw her hesitate for just one second, 
but it was only a second. She pulled her coat off and 
flung it over the back of one of the chairs next to 
the breakfast table. So not like Scully, he thought 
with some amusement. Flinging outerwear onto 
furniture.

When she cautiously took her seat next to him on the 
couch, he didn't second-guess his own instinct to draw 
her to his side, folding his arm around her back until 
his hand could form itself into the indentations 
between her ribs. He was pleased when he felt her head 
settle on his shoulder.

"So... what happened with the surgery?"

She took a long, deep breath and exhaled it toward his 
chest.

"We did it. It'll be a few more treatments before we 
know if it's working or not, but his parents are 
willing to give it a chance."

"That's good," he murmured, his left hand making 
short, soothing strokes up and down the side of her 
body.

"I hope so. I hope it's the right thing."

"You didn't give up." He heard the note of pride that 
seeped into his voice, completely unbidden.

"I'm trying."

"I know you are." He lifted his right hand from where 
it lay beside him and awkwardly laced the fingers of 
her right hand with his own, just above where the 
bandages tapered off.

There was a moment of silence when he felt his eyes 
blinking slowly, and he wondered if they would both 
fall asleep just like this. Here, on the couch, 
holding her as she rested against him. That would be 
nice, he thought, as he felt his mind starting to slip 
away again.

"Mulder?"

The sound of her voice brought him back from the edge 
of slumber.

"Hmmmmm?"

"I've been thinking. About everything that happened 
the last few days."

He gave her one of his rumbling hums, a noise that 
would have been more like a grunt if it didn't come 
out sounding like it carried a question mark.

"I was thinking maybe I should have been there with 
you yesterday. Maybe you wouldn't have run into 
trouble if I'd been there."

"Awww, you know me, Scully. Trouble and I go way back. 
Whether you're there or not." 

"I know," she told him, and he heard the sadness in 
the words. "But I feel like I let - "

" - No." He spoke before she could finish her thought. 
"What did you say to me yesterday? You said I think 
you don't understand, but you do. Well, you think I 
don't understand. But I do."

She chuffed against him and he liked the way her 
breath felt as it pushed against the fabric of his 
shirt and seemed to touch the skin beneath it.

"Do you?" she asked him with the hint of a smile.

"All this free time on my hands. I pay more attention 
to some things than I used to. I realized last night 
that it's been, what, five years since I've been in an 
ER? And the last time was when I sliced my hand 
chopping up a scallion."

He felt her nodding against him.

"Our life now. It's so different than what it was. 
Sometimes I miss it. Sometimes I miss running after a 
lead at two o'clock in the morning. I miss talking 
about toxicology reports with you. I miss wondering 
where we'll go next and what we'll find there." He 
paused. "But you don't, do you?"

"I miss those things sometimes too." 

Her voice sounded like it was coming from a distance, 
and he wondered if it was because she was looking back 
in time just as far as he was. 

"It's what I don't miss that made me stay away this 
time." Her fingers toyed with his, wrapping around 
them and sliding over his skin with a feather-light 
touch. "I don't miss the danger. And I don't miss 
feeling like we were the only good in a sea of evil. 
And..."

She stopped suddenly and he looked down to see that 
she was biting lightly on her lower lip.

"And what?" he pressed her gently. "You can tell me."

He felt her hand pull away, and the rest of her body 
followed before he could even think to stop it. She 
drew back a few inches and tucked one leg underneath 
her, turning to face him even as her eyes refused to 
rise and meet his own.

"It's going to sound selfish, and small, and I'm not 
sure it's even fair."

"I can take it," he reassured her.

"Old times for us were... it was you and the work. You 
were so focused on finding the answers we needed, 
whatever they were. We were in the car, and you were 
driving, and it was like your eyes were always 
straight ahead on the road in front of us. But for all 
these years now, we've been out of the car. And it's 
felt like... like your eyes..." 

Her voice faltered and she shook her head once or 
twice like she couldn't bring herself to finish the 
thought. He reached out for her hand again and brought 
it back toward him, resting both of their hands 
together on the edge of his knee.

"Like my eyes were on you."

Her head jerked up rather sharply and she squinted at 
him with obvious disbelief. He'd suspected she didn't 
really believe him when he told her he was paying more 
attention to things these days than he had before.

"Well, yes." She sounded almost as surprised as she'd 
been the first time he'd remembered her birthday.

He swept his free hand across his chin and lips, 
pausing to rub the stubble that was breaking through 
skin still sensitive from the absence of his beard.

"Scully, my eyes have been on you for as long as I can 
remember. But I can see how it didn't always seem that 
way. Back in the day. We didn't talk about things back 
then. We probably should have, but we didn't. Now, we 
talk, and you know how I feel, and you know where you 
stand. That's the difference."

She sighed. "It's more than that." 

"Well, maybe that's true. There's been nothing else on 
my plate. Nothing at all for the longest time. And 
maybe I didn't even realize how much I missed having 
something to *do* until this case came along. But you 
have to understand, Scully. Even if I picked up a 
badge and a gun again - and I'm not going to, but if I 
did - everything has changed."

"What do you mean?" Her chin was quivering just as it 
had when she'd asked him the same question in the 
front yard today, the early light of morning dancing 
over the unshed tears in her eyes.

"I mean that no matter where the day takes me, I'll 
always come home to you when the day ends. And 
darkness can follow me, but it doesn't live in me 
anymore. There's no room for it when you're here."

She lowered her eyes, and he knew she was trying to 
keep him from seeing any more tears. There'd been too 
many tears during these past few days. It wasn't that 
the past six years had been free of sadness, but he 
felt like the FBI had just blown through their lives 
again, taking everything that lay below the surface, 
unspoken, and cranking it up to level ten.

"I know that now." She was trying to sound strong and 
steady, but he heard the catch in her voice, faint as 
it was. "I just never really believed that we'd ever 
have what we have now. And I know it hasn't been 
perfect, and I know that you've been frustrated, but 
sometimes it still amazes me when I walk through that 
door and you're here, and I wake up and you're there. 
It's like I'm afraid we're still in that cave, under 
the mushrooms and the spores, being slowly digested, 
and this is all some kind of hallucination. I don't 
know. I'm rambling."

He squeezed her hand as tightly as he could without 
hurting her.

"This is real," he told her. Insistent. Sure of 
himself. "This isn't going anywhere. We deserved 
this."

"Yes," she whispered. "We did."

"And nothing and no one is going to come in here and 
fuck this up. It's not going to happen."

She laughed quietly and the sound made his heart 
expand to fill all the empty space in the center of 
his chest.

"Mulder..." She breathed out his name with the 
smallest hint of reproach for his rougher language.

"I'm serious," he said, the tease in his voice belying 
the literal meaning of the words as he disengaged his 
hand from hers and began running his fingers along the 
inside of her wrist. "The FBI, crazy Russians, the 
darkness out there, super soldiers, the world... they 
can all just bring it the fuck on because nothing is 
ever going to interfere with what's between us."

This time the laugh he heard was loud and unguarded. 
She sounded light and free again for the first time in 
a long time, and it made him laugh in return. When her 
smile finally faded, it didn't leave her eyes, and he 
realized she simply wanted to tell him something she 
considered worthy of her most serious face.

"Thank you." 

She looked at him with such bare sincerity that he had 
to fight the familiar twitching of tears gathering 
behind the corners of his eyes.

"Eh..." He shrugged off the gratitude in his typically 
uncomfortable way. "I just want to make sure you don't 
have any doubt about that."

"Like I said," she told him in a voice that suddenly 
sounded several levels deeper than it had been a few 
seconds before, "thank you."

He smiled, happy as he always was to bask in words 
that let him know he'd said the right thing for a 
change. He and Scully didn't say "I love you" as often 
as he imagined most people did. Maybe they should say 
it more, he thought, but it wasn't really their way. 
It sounded a little too ordinary, too common to sum up 
what they felt. But he always heard it in her words at 
moments like this. 

And at moments like this, he realized he should have 
heard it in the things she said to him for years 
before they'd finally admitted that what they had was 
something more than friendship. He should have heard 
it because he knew now that it had been there for a 
very long time, just as it had been implicit in so 
many of the things he'd said to her.

What could he say to her to explain that she meant 
everything to him? Was there a shorthand for telling 
her that he'd travel to the ends of the earth a 
thousand times to save her? That he'd step in front of 
a bullet or a speeding car and the only thought in his 
mind, even as he gave his life for hers, would be 
regret that he was leaving her alone? That they could 
offer him his sister and his son and the key to saving 
the whole world from an invasion and he wouldn't take 
any of it if they asked him to walk away from her? "I 
love you" really didn't do it justice.

When she stood and pulled at his hand, he realized 
that he'd been staring at her with a slightly goofy 
look on his face, lost in the once unfamiliar feeling 
of being happy. 

"It's late," she told him. "Let's go to bed."

"Okay," he offered brightly. "You must be tired after 
such a long day."

"Not really, no." 

There was no mistaking that tone. After seven odd 
years, his ears were tuned perfectly to pick up the 
sounds of arousal and invitation. He didn't hear those 
notes as often as he had in the very beginning, but it 
still struck the same deep chord inside him whenever 
he did.

She walked deliberately, tugging him along behind her 
as she moved gracefully up the stairs that led to 
their small second floor, consisting only of a master 
bedroom and a much smaller room that could have housed 
guests if they ever had them but instead served as her 
workspace at home.

He grinned at the look that passed over her face when 
she noticed that the bed was still half unmade. He 
knew she hated the fact that he was still in touch 
with his inner slob, almost as much as she hated the 
comforter that covered their bed.

He'd spilled orange juice all over the last one, a 
tasteful off-white quilt that hadn't survived the 
large dose of Vitamin C he gave it. Before she could 
order a new one, he'd assured her that he could find 
something nice on the internet. She'd tried to brush 
him off and he'd complained that nothing in the 
bedroom reflected his taste or his input except the 
fish tank. When he'd presented her with his purchase a 
few days later and informed her that it reminded him 
of crop circles, she'd scowled for a few minutes 
before she helped him unfold it and spread it out over 
the mattress. 

Now, he was enjoying the feeling of being pulled down 
to lie against her in the middle of that blue field 
that evoked the things that once filled him with 
wonder. Every night in this bed was like the late 
realization of a fantasy from his trip to England 
eight years before, the one from which he'd returned 
to find her looking at him in an entirely different 
way. With all the loss and sorrow they'd suffered in 
their lives together, he sometimes found it hard to 
contain the feeling of joy that washed over him when 
he thought of the good things they'd managed to find.

He pulled her body tightly against his and was pleased 
to hear her breath catch as he did it. Eyes closed 
tightly, his lips still found hers without any 
hesitation or unfortunate facial collisions. He didn't 
need a map when he knew the route by heart. He began 
kissing her slowly and deeply, sliding his tongue into 
her mouth in a meager attempt to communicate the 
overwhelming tenderness he was feeling for her after 
too many difficult days.

He was surprised to feel her pull back from the kiss, 
her hand pressing lightly against his chest. She took 
a few seconds to catch her breath before he felt her 
other hand tenderly stroking the edge of his jaw.

"Mulder... I think I know how you want this to be 
tonight. But that's not really what I need right now."

"I'm not following," he responded, sounding somewhat 
puzzled and a little bit hurt. He absolutely needed 
and wanted this to happen tonight, and he thought he 
might actually cry if she stopped him at the gate. 

"What I mean is..." 

She turned her head to the side and he somehow knew, 
even though he couldn't see her face well in the 
darkness, that she was blushing. So. She wasn't going 
to stop this but she had something to say. 

When it came to the acts themselves, Scully was the 
farthest thing from shy when they were in bed 
together, but even after all these years, getting her 
to verbalize what she wanted without dropping her 
voice to a whisper and looking away was still a work 
in progress. But he counted the fact that she was now 
*able* to tell him what she wanted, even if she 
sometimes seemed uncomfortable doing it, as a bold 
stroke in the win column.

He often had to coax her, reassuring her that this was 
okay and that nothing she could say would disappoint 
him or sound ridiculous or turn him off. But he didn't 
mind in the slightest. He drew her head back down 
toward his and moved his lips against her ear.

"Whatever you need. Just tell me."

She let the silence hang in the air for a bit longer 
before he heard her take a deep breath and begin to 
speak again.

"I want... I don't want this to be slow, or sad. I 
want... you to take this over." She pushed that same 
breath out, now ragged, and he felt her turning her 
head away from him again. So he reached to grab her 
chin and pulled her back until her eyes were level 
with his.

"Okay," he told her steadily. "I can do that."

He rose up on his knees and yanked his shirt off over 
his head, letting his hands fall right back down to 
loosen his belt and unbutton his jeans. There was just 
enough light from a half-full moon for him to see the 
way her eyes roamed over his chest and stomach as he 
lay back to pull his jeans and boxer briefs down and 
away. He might be pushing fifty - the thought 
completely horrified him - but he was proud of himself 
for staying in his old fighting shape, and he knew 
that she had a particular appreciation for the hard 
muscles that gave his torso its structure.

He saw her hands moving to the bottom edge of her soft 
v-neck sweater, and he reached to still them.

"Let me. Sit up a minute." 

He could see the features on her face beginning to 
relax already. She really did want him to run the show 
here tonight, although he wasn't completely sure he 
understood why. He pushed the question out of his mind 
and separated her from her sweater, his large hands 
running roughly over her skin even as he took care not 
to put too much pressure on the one that was still 
bandaged. He easily unhooked the clasp of her bra in 
the middle of her back with the good hand and slid the 
garment slowly down her shoulders.

God, she was beautiful. How was it possible that she 
could be getting more beautiful with all the time that 
had passed? It was practically an X-File in itself... 
but one where he didn't really care about finding the 
answer and the explanation.

"Now lie back."

"And think of England?" she asked him innocently.

"No. Think of me," he told her in a low voice. "Think 
of how it feels when I'm inside you."

She moaned when he spoke and he couldn't help feeling 
a little proud of himself. He was awfully good at the 
talking thing. Considering how many times she'd rolled 
her eyes at him over the years while he droned on 
about one theory or another, he would never have 
guessed that she'd take so much pleasure in the things 
he said to her when they were in bed. 

In a few quick motions, he divested her of the slacks 
she wore and of the low-cut black lace that covered 
precious little anyway. She'd kicked the shoes off 
herself at some point, and it took him no time at all 
to pull the knee-high hose from her legs. There, he 
thought, as his eyes swept over her slim form, laid 
bare. Perfect.

He fell back down and covered half of her body with 
half of his own, pressing her down into the mattress 
while his mouth pressed hard kisses against the side 
of her jaw, along her hairline, and in the hollow 
where her long neck met a delicate shoulder. He was 
moving more quickly than he normally would, as she had 
asked, but still not too quickly. He wanted to enjoy 
this. It had been nearly a week now since they'd made 
love, and he wanted this to last for at least a little 
while.

He found himself lingering next to her face. He 
thought he knew what she was asking him for, but he 
needed to be certain.

"Are you sure?" he asked her quietly. "You want me to 
drive?"

She turned to catch his eyes and, this time, he was 
the one who couldn't help glancing away uncertainly 
for a second before he brought his gaze back to hers.

"I'm sure," she whispered.

"Even if you don't know where we're going?"

"I don't want to know." She smiled at him. "Just take 
me there. Like old times."

"Like old times," he agreed. "Give me your hand."

He allowed himself to fall away from her as she raised 
her hand to where she knew his would be waiting. He 
curled his fingers around her wrist and then slid them 
up toward the edges of her fingers, until the back of 
her left hand fit within the outline of his palm, his 
thumb hooked around her thumb so that he could better 
guide her movement. 

Gently but firmly, he moved her hand down and wrapped 
her fingers around his shaft, which had been fully 
erect since right after she made it clear that this 
was going to happen tonight. Welcome to the life of a 
man in a long-term relationship, he thought to 
himself, just before he realized that it was going to 
be hard to concentrate on random thoughts when she was 
moving her hand like that. 

He kept his own hand wrapped loosely around hers, 
allowing it to be pulled along with her movements, 
enclosing her just as she enclosed him.

"God, Scully... you know what I love? I love that you 
know exactly how I like to be touched. I... oh yeah... 
I used to wonder what this would feel like. Ten years 
ago. Maybe longer. I'd be in a motel room next to 
yours..."

He groaned and closed his eyes as she continued 
grasping him firmly, then more lightly, all the while 
stroking steadily up and down his length.

"I'd be in bed at night doing... mmmmmmm... just what 
you're doing now. Except not as good. And I'd try... 
to imagine how it would be if it were your hand. Your 
mouth."

He heard her sigh deeply and felt fingers running 
through his long, thinning hair, pushing it away from 
his brow. Her thumb began to press more insistently on 
the underside of his cock, running along the vein that 
often felt like it might burst from the pressure.

"I always wanted to go in there. Where you were. I 
wanted... unnnhhhhhh... I wanted to walk through the 
door. I wanted you."

He could feel a familiar sensation building in his 
testicles, threatening to erupt, and he quickly 
grabbed her hand and pulled it away from him before 
she brought the curtain down early on tonight's show. 
He struggled to steady his breathing for a few 
moments, smiling in spite of himself at the way she 
continued to pull lightly at the strands of his hair.

Having gathered a small semblance of control again, he 
turned back toward her, allowing her to see that 
gentle smile on his face as he moved their hands - 
still fitted together like glove on glove - across her 
stomach and down, slowly, between her thighs.

He moved her fingers into the wetness he found there, 
using his index and middle fingers to slide their 
counterparts on her hand over the center of nerves 
that he could feel was throbbing, filling with blood 
in much the same way that the blood filled him. Once 
again, he wordlessly encouraged her to set the flow of 
their movement and simply allowed his own hand to 
trail along hers.

"Before you and I... you know..."

"Slept together," she finished for him, words half 
coherent, half senseless gasping, as she slid one 
finger inside her and allowed one of his to follow.
 
"Yeah... I used to wonder if maybe you were on the 
other side of that door. Doing this."

Still letting his hand move with hers, the two of them 
began working their fingers in slow circles around and 
over her clit, and he found that he couldn't tear his 
eyes away from her face. He loved watching her at 
times like this, times when she was beginning to let 
herself go. Her brows knitting together with an 
intense concentration while her lips parted and then 
closed again with every breath. He loved the way that 
her head would roll at three-quarter speed, back and 
forth on the pillow, turning away and then turning 
back as she let herself feel the sensations shooting 
through her body.

"Mulder..." she whispered, sliding her hand out from 
underneath his fingers. "You... touch me. Just you."

He leaned over to steal a kiss from her, unable to 
resist the way her mouth hung open and seemed to be 
inviting him to enter. He never broke contact with the 
flesh that they'd been working together only a moment 
before. But even as he felt her thrumming beneath his 
fingers, he couldn't help himself from asking, 
wondering how it was that he'd never asked her before. 
Never quite this way.

"When you touched yourself, Scully... before... did 
you think about me?" His voice had dropped to a more 
modest register. Almost shy. Almost reluctant to ask 
in case he ended up not liking the answer that she 
gave him.

He heard her laugh lightly just as she sucked in 
another deep breath.

"You tell me, Mulder."

"No," he told her quietly, slowing the rotations of 
his fingers until they were barely moving and feeling 
only slightly guilty when she groaned with regret. 
"You tell me."

She opened her eyes, and it looked like it took some 
great effort, almost like he was watching two garage 
doors struggling upward along their chains.

"It's important to you," she huffed out in a 
surprisingly matter-of-fact tone of voice.

"I want to know. I was thinking about you. And I 
always imagined, back then, that you were thinking 
about me. Stupid, huh?" 

He could hear those familiar notes of self-loathing 
creeping into his words, and he knew she wouldn't like 
the sound. But instead of reproving him for being 
silly, or stupid, or insecure, she brought both of her 
hands to his face and pulled him down to her. She 
kissed him fervently, and he started to feel lost in 
the sensation of the moist lips suckling at him, 
kissing him, moving over his mouth like they belonged 
there as much as his own lips did.

He sighed sadly when she pulled away.

"It took me a long time, Mulder," she told him, and he 
heard the regret in her words. "I couldn't let myself 
feel those things for a long time, not even in the 
dark. Not even when I was alone. I knew what was 
there, right under the surface, and I thought I'd get 
lost in it."

He tried to hide the disappointment he imagined was 
creeping across his face. He shouldn't have asked. It 
wasn't important anyway. That was a long time ago, and 
this was now. He returned his attentions to stroking 
her, pushing the question and the answer out of his 
mind. So he was unprepared for the feeling of her hand 
covering his own and bringing him to a gradual stop.

"Mulder."

He loved the way his name rolled off her tongue. Found 
himself wanting to send a thank-you note to himself at 
age thirty-two for insisting that Scully not call him 
Fox.

"I walked in on you once," she told him, the long-
suppressed guilt breaking right through. "We'd been 
partners for maybe four years and you'd left the 
connecting door ajar one night, and I didn't realize 
you were already in bed and that the lights in your 
room were off because I was thinking about the report 
in my hand, and I..."

"You walked in on me?!" He wasn't certain why he cared -
after all, he'd be hard-pressed to count the number 
of times he'd stroked himself in front of her when 
they were having sex - but he was horrified just the 
same. "You walked in on my jerking off? Jesus."

He could see that Scully was trying very hard to 
stifle a smile.

"I didn't see very much, Mulder. I realized right away 
what was going on and that you didn't know I was 
there. I only watched you for half a minute."

"You watched me?!" He brought his bandaged hand up to 
his eyes and covered them, embarrassed more for the 
man he used to be than for the man he now was.

"Only for a bit," she murmured. "I couldn't... it was 
strange... I couldn't walk away. I was frozen there 
and it seemed like an hour before I could move again. 
Because I just knew somehow that you were..."

She paused.

"That you were imagining me. Imagining us."

"Well if it was any time after 1996, I don't think 
there's any question," he told her, sounding a little 
indignant.

"I know," she told him softly.

"And you didn't feel the same way." J'accuse! he 
thought to himself.

"No... I did. That was the problem. So I turned around 
and went back inside my room and I tried to just... to 
forget."

"Why are you telling me this?"

She shrugged.

"Because you asked. And because I don't know how else 
to explain to you how hard it was for me to let you 
in." 

Her voice was suddenly full of emotion, having gone 
from amusement to something far more mournful in not 
much more than the blink of an eye.

"And now that I've let you in... now that you're 
here... I can't handle the thought of you ever not 
being here." 

Her voice broke just as she finished speaking, and he 
found himself searching her face for the tears he knew 
he'd find there. He wasn't disappointed. 

He lay flat against the bed and gathered her into his 
arms until her head was tucked into the nook where his 
chest and shoulder met.

"I'm not going anywhere," he promised her.

He could barely hear the sob catching in her throat, 
but he felt it rumbling against his skin.
 
"Last night..." she choked out.

"Ssshhhhhh. I'm alright. You saved me."

"One of these days... if I'd been even a few seconds 
late... if I'd walked a little slower, or taken a 
wrong turn..."

"But you didn't," he whispered. "And I'm okay. You'll 
always save me, Scully. You always have."

"And when the day comes that I can't?!" 

"I don't believe in that day."

"Maybe you should."

"No. I'll be more careful, and you'll be you, and 
something out there... someone... will be on our side 
like it always has been."

"You're not charmed, you know, Mulder. Whatever you 
might think."

He bent down to kiss the top of her head. 

"Not charmed. Just very lucky. You're my luck, Scully. 
Something watches over you, and you watch over me."

She sniffled several times and he was so happy to have 
her in his arms like this, opening up to him like she 
never had when they were younger, that he didn't even 
feel that badly about his now-flagging erection.

"You don't believe in God," she told him dismissively, 
and he laughed out loud at the accusation.

Deciding that it was time to push the evening back on 
track, he deftly slid his body out to the left and 
then rolled himself on top of her, nestling himself in 
the space between her legs.

"Well..." He bent his head to her ear again and 
lowered his voice, wanting her to hear all of the want 
there, and all of the need, and all of the sometimes 
overwhelming affection he felt for her. "You do. You 
believe in God. And I believe in you. Transitive 
property."

He reached down to take himself in hand and bring all 
flags at half-mast back to attention, finding that 
this was unfamiliar territory for his uninjured left 
hand. Still, he was amused all over again at how he'd 
do this without a second thought now and was 
completely mortified by the idea that she'd seen him 
doing it ten years ago.

"Transitive... really." She sounded skeptical. He knew 
he was a completely lost cause the day he realized 
that he loved her skeptical tone of voice almost more 
than any other. 

"Mmmmm hmmmmmm." 

Frustrated with the awkwardness of his left hand, he 
slid his body farther up along hers and began rubbing 
the very tip of his cock against her clit. Yeah, that 
did the trick for him. And from the sounds she was 
making, it was definitely doing the trick for her.

"Jesus, Mulder!"

His back rose up in a beautiful curve and then dipped 
again at his neck where he leaned down to rub his 
cheek against hers, humming as he did it and knowing 
that the rough stubble on his face was giving her 
contrast. A little bit of pain here, a lot of pleasure 
elsewhere. Roughness at one end of her body, and a 
pure, slick smoothness working over her at the other. 

He always enjoyed teasing her this way, but it wasn't 
always a tease. As often as he'd play there this way, 
lingering at the entrance to her body just before 
sliding inside it, there were many times when he'd 
stay right where he was and make her come just from 
the friction of his cock rubbing against her. He liked 
to mix it up a bit. Keep it interesting. And he liked 
that she never knew whether or not he was going to 
enter her at a moment like this one. Never knew if 
he'd choose to bring her to orgasm this way first and 
worry about fucking her later.

Much as he ached, and as sensitive as the head of his 
cock was becoming, he could also see how close she was 
and he was reluctant to break her away from that 
glorious build that was beginning to etch itself into 
the soft lines of her face. 

"Mulder... aren't you... please..." He felt the tips 
of her fingers pressing into the flesh of his ass and 
struggling to pull him inside her.

"Just wait," he gritted out. "Not yet. I'm... 
driving... remember?"

She gasped again in frustration, but the gasp was 
interrupted by a much deeper moan coming from 
somewhere deep inside her. He could see that it had 
caught her by surprise. He increased the pace at which 
his hips were moving and let his fingers slide down 
the edge of his cock to take over the hard work of 
taking her right over the edge. 

She lasted maybe a few more seconds before he watched 
her face contorting in that unbelievably erotic way it 
did when she was particularly tense and the relief was 
particularly welcome. Pain, joy, and release all 
merged into one incredible look of rapture. He was a 
lucky man alright.

He waited for the first hint of discomfort to appear 
on her face and immediately removed his touch from the 
wet warmth where he'd like to set up camp and stay 
forever. Maybe build a fire. Like Dances With Wolves.

She was still breathing hard, but she managed to fling 
a hand over on top of his chest when he flopped back 
down beside her. That hand moved across the place just 
above his heart, tracing lazy patterns there as she 
came back to herself. 

"Thank you," she whispered, and he was a little 
flummoxed by the idea of being thanked right now. 
Didn't she know how much he enjoyed doing this with 
her? For her? He didn't need to be thanked. So he told 
her so.

"Scully, don't thank me for doing something I love to 
do. It's weird."

She turned and gave him one of her brightest smiles. 
Teeth and everything. 

"Sorry," she told him, sounding contrite as the smile 
faded a bit. "It's hard to find the words sometimes. 
To tell you."

"To tell me what?" He nuzzled her cheek again.

"That... I'm grateful. For you. For what you give me."

He'd always thought that hearts only broke when they 
were hurting. But sometimes, when she looked at him 
the way she was looking at him now, and she said 
something that caught him completely off guard with 
its honesty and simplicity, he could swear he felt 
something splintering inside his chest. He decided it 
must be what you feel when something moves you too 
much for words and too much for tears.

So he said nothing. He simply turned and let his head 
fall to her breast, sliding his ear around until he 
could hear the beating underneath her skin. They lay 
together like that for a little while, just listening 
to the silence and watching the shadows shifting in 
the room as the moon followed its arc through the sky 
outside. Long enough, he soon realized, that they'd 
started breathing in unison.

"So, I've been thinking, Mulder." Her voice was so 
soft and low that it would have been lost if there'd 
been any other sound in their bedroom at all.

"Thinking?" he muttered.

"Like you suggested." 

Her voice dropped another notch. Was that even 
possible, he wondered? Any lower and he'd probably 
have to be a bat to catch the sound.

"I'm thinking about how you feel when you're moving 
inside me."

Damn. He must have done something awfully good at some 
point in his life to have ended up with Scully. 

"And about the way you look when you're there."

One of her hands pulled at his left side, encouraging 
him to move back on top of her, while the other played 
with the hair at the base of his skull and massaged 
the tired muscles there.

"Come into me, Mulder." It was barely a whisper but he 
heard it. Because he knew what to listen for. "Come to 
me."

They'd agreed that he would be at the wheel tonight, 
but when the woman he loved - the only woman he'd ever 
really loved, he understood now - was asking him to 
fuck her... well, for once, he didn't feel much like 
arguing with her.

"Tell you what, Scully..." In a flash, he rolled and 
pulled her on top of him despite her best efforts to 
effect the opposite result. "I think you'll have to 
ride because I'm not sure my right hand can take my 
weight. Besides, this is always the best view for me."

"And for me," she murmured.

And before he could think of a clever retort, he felt 
her sliding down on him, all of the heat inside her 
surrounding him, strong inner muscles contracting all 
along the length of him. She pushed as far down as she 
could go, never stopping until she'd settled herself 
against the base of his cock. 

This was good. Sometimes he thought that this was all 
he really wanted anymore. To be joined with her this 
way. To feel her all around him. Like a blanket. Like 
a shield. Like armor. Like acceptance he'd searched 
for all of his life and never found until he'd looked 
up one day and found it staring back at him in the 
form of his perfect opposite.

She was moving now, pushing herself up and then back 
down, so slowly, and it was like being in a trance to 
watch her doing it. He thrust his hips upward to meet 
her every other time she moved to take him back in, 
and he loved the way she gasped when he did.

He brought his left hand up to grasp her neck just 
below where the edge of her jaw was setting hard with 
concentration. He ran his thumb along the joint there, 
trying to relax the muscle he could see flexing even 
in near darkness. 

"That's it, Scully... yes... just like that... God, I 
love this... so beautiful... I waited... such a long 
time... for you..."

"I know," she managed to breathe out as her pattern 
picked up speed and lost a little of its grace. "Too 
many years... too much time... too dark..."

"It's light here now," he told her fiercely, thrusting 
up harder against her, pushing himself up from this 
bed in the middle of a nearly pitch black room. 
Twisting a little so that his pelvic bone hit her in 
just the perfect spot. "Let it try... to find us... 
where it's so light."

He saw the smile and the tears crossing her face at 
the same time, intersecting somewhere in a burst of 
brightness that lit up everything in his field of 
vision. He felt the spasms from her inner muscles like 
sparks all around him, and he heard her crying out, 
and he wanted to look at her now and watch the way her 
face danced with light that could have only come from 
somewhere inside them... light that didn't exist on 
its own in a dark house in the dead of night. But she 
pulled him along with her in a wild release of 
pleasure and grief and fear, and he was lost in it. 
Letting go of everything, here, for now, together. 

He felt her collapse against him and he held her to 
his chest as tightly as he could, like he could 
somehow meld her flesh with his own if only he were 
strong enough. If only the world worked that way. If 
only the light could always stay.

"Don't give up," she whispered thoughtfully, wisps of 
breath from her mouth bouncing off his skin. "It 
sounds so simple. Like it's easy to say."

"We've never given up." He realized that he was 
stroking the back of her neck, running his finger over 
the scar that covered the chip there. "It's not who we 
are."

"You really believe that something... God or 
something... was speaking through a fallen priest."

"It makes sense. Who could understand redemption 
better than someone who needs it above all others? Who 
could understand hope better than someone who knows 
what it is to take hope away from someone else? Knows 
what it is to look for it again."

Resting her head just beneath his chin, she reached up 
and touched his face tenderly.

"I always wanted to believe that God could be 
speaking. But I was afraid that no one was listening. 
That I wasn't listening."

"And now?" He kissed the tips of her fingers as they 
passed across his lips. 

"And now... now a storm is coming. We've told 
ourselves that there'll be time. But I wonder. I 
wonder if all of this was meant to remind us... meant 
to remind *me* that we can't hide from the storm."

Yes, he thought, as if he were remembering something 
he'd been told once that had somehow slipped away from 
him. Lying here now, on a bed made of crop circles, he 
realized that he'd never really forgotten. A storm. 
Soon. 

"Let the storm come," he told her, taking her hand in 
his and holding her even closer as his eyes searched 
above him until they found the light of a fading moon. 
"Let it come. We'll be ready."

END

Author's Notes: I can't take credit for coming up with 
the idea that those grommet things on Mulder and 
Scully's comforter might resemble crop circles, but I 
also can't remember who first drew the comparison and 
at which message board. You know who you are and I 
thank you for the inspiration. It would make my whole 
year if the set decorator for IWTB participated in the 
DVD commentary.

Thanks also to Mack and Namarie for giving us ATTHS. 
It's practically this year's "truthiness" already.

And last thing... I haven't forgotten about A Star 
Like a White City (is it AU now?). I've been working 
on Part 5. But the film. Come on. I've seen it seven 
times. I needed an outlet.