In the Breach
by Frey

GENRE: MSR, XF2-fic
RATING: PG-13 (language, fuzzy-lens sex)
FEEDBACK: Yes, please! Here, or at oldkasperl[at]hotmail.com
SPOILERS: All the important stuff is sheer speculation. The 
new trailer, when it shows up in a few weeks, will probably 
Joss me, but oh well!
SUMMARY: I can't wait for the movie.



They had a complex arrangement - Scully spent four nights a 
week in town, and three with Mulder. Every other week or so 
she chose one day to drive the three hours to their house 
on a weeknight, and stayed until dawn. It was exhausting, 
but the regular distance kept things hot and heavy, and she 
certainly wasn't bored.

Of course she wanted to live with him full time. But this, 
she told herself, was a temporary last measure, something 
that kept her in the world, which she needed even if Mulder 
did not.

Some nights she ached for him, for his smell when they slept,
 and all she could think about was Mulder, lying alone in 
their bed, and whether he too was awake. She texted him 
like some heartsick teenager. He always returned them with 
a call, sometimes that night, sometimes a rumbly and sleepy 
message on her voicemail later the next morning while she 
was at work. She would step into a quiet corner of the 
hospital and let his voice seep into her with its warmth. 
Scully saved them all, until the 90 day expiration date sent 
them quietly into oblivion, and she had dozens more filling 
their place, full of endearments and lousy jokes.



She was pulling in one Friday with Chinese stacked in the 
passenger seat when she saw the snowmobile was missing. Her 
heart stuck in place and she left the food in the car as 
she rushed into the house, fumbling with the key in the lock. 
Inside, everything seemed normal. She went through the 
kitchen and down the hall, switching on lights - there was 
no sign of struggle, nothing missing except his coat on the 
rack. Scully tried to be calm and reasonable. His restless 
feet had probably just pushed him to get out of the house 
for a while.

She checked their bedroom: his books stacked five-high on 
the nightstand, his contact lens solution on the dresser, 
his clothes in the closet. She fingered one of his shirts 
but resisted smelling it. He was fine. There was nothing to 
suggest any emergency.

Yanking open his underwear drawer, she saw he hadn't taken 
their small firearm. His phone blinked a sad slow blue on 
the floor next to the wall where he had left it charging. 
Scully didn't know whether to be angry that he had gone off 
completely unprepared or relieved that at least he didn't 
seem to have set out on another "research mission." Without 
telling her. Without even providing her a way to contact 
him. Frustration won out and she slammed shut his drawer.

At the same moment there was a clatter from the kitchen, and
Scully practically dashed back toward the hallway.

"Scully?"

His voice, thank God. He loomed in the doorway in his big 
parka and boots. Scully came into the kitchen, fighting to 
sustain her outrage in the relief of his presence.

"Mulder!" she choked out. "Where were you?"

He clomped forward and pulled her into a hug, oblivious to 
her stormy expression. "Hi," he said, "I went for a ride, 
Scully. I thought I'd get back in time."

He bent to give her a kiss, but Scully held him back. "You 
didn't even take your phone. What if something had happened 
to you? I wouldn't even know where to start looking!"

Mulder frowned, his beard looking extra shaggy like it did 
when he hadn't trimmed it in a few days. "I got bored, 
Scully. It was a beautiful day - I know enough not to run 
out of gas."

"It would be so hard to let me know? To take your phone, so 
I could reach you? Mulder--"

"Hey - okay," he said, startled by her escalating tone. "I'm 
sorry, I shouldn't have done that. I thought I would be back
before you got here."

Scully sighed, shutting her eyes briefly before opening them
again and fixing them on his chest. When she spoke, the edge 
had left her voice. "I don't like you disappearing on me."

Mulder nodded slowly, slid a hand down her arm. "I'm sorry,"
he whispered. He smelled like outdoors, and this time she 
let him kiss her.

After they broke off, Scully zipped his coat closed again 
and put the keys in his hand. "There's takeout in the car," 
she said. When he smiled, it could have been any one of a 
thousand nights, years and years ago, case files and bad 
television in his dim apartment. Scully watched him lope 
back out the door, leaned against their microwave, and 
prayed for a thousand more.



Sex was still so good. She ran her hands up and down the 
muscles in his back and held his head. They were as close 
to each other as they could be, belly to belly, her legs 
around him. Incredible, Scully thought, that this intimacy 
could still be so shocking, a curling jolt from her thighs 
to her breastbone. She couldn't stop kissing his neck, his 
tickly jaw, and he couldn't stop smiling at her. Scully 
tried to catch her breath; Mulder bit his lip because their 
love was painful.

"My stomach hurts," he croaked in her ear, sounding so 
pitiful that the mood collapsed and Scully broke down into 
laughter, rolling him over onto his back, kissing him just 
above his ear. He groaned and smiled. They laced their 
fingers together and listened to each other breathe.

"Are you going to shave this?" Scully asked after a while.

"Mm, thought you liked it," Mulder mumbled.

"I do. Kinda," she allowed.

"It's my mountain man look."

"It's your sasquatch-sighting look."

She was rewarded with a genuine chuckle. "Always the 
rational explanation."

"I don't want any passing kid with a hunting license taking 
a shot at you," she said fondly.

He sighed contentedly and ran her own hair through his 
fingers. "If you want. Far be it from me to saddle you with 
a wildlife protection lawsuit."

She threw one leg over him to look into his depthless eyes.
"It'll help me see your face," she divulged, charmed by his
easy compliance.

"And that's such a good thing?" he grinned. "I'm not 
getting any younger."

"It's my favorite thing," she told him, her heart squeezed 
tight. Mulder, whose features were continual discovery and
ongoing revelation for Scully, looked up at her like she 
was all the redemption he would ever seek, and she drew 
him close and kissed him.



"I don't want to know what that is," Scully warned, coming 
in on a weeknight visit in February.

"Don't judge!" said Mulder. She could tell he was enjoying 
that "Kiss Me, I'm Cryptid" apron a little too much. 
Flushed from standing over the stove, he offered her a 
taste of the end of his spatula. It was hot, but not 
terrible.

"Mmm," she offered, "tastes a little too much like that 
unfortunate Frohike experiment, but it's not lethal." She 
slid out of her flats and made her way to the bathroom.

"That was high-quality all-purpose hot sauce, Scully!" he 
called after her. "Good for bread, good for carrots, good 
for soup, good for cheesesteaks -"

He was still going when she got back, stirring and sniffing,
and she took advantage of his vulnerable circumstance, 
slipping her arms around his waist. They couldn't exactly 
spoon in this position, at least standing up, but she found
 a perfectly fitted place for herself under his arm.

"And why are you so chipper tonight?" she asked, watching 
his face.

"I'm happy you're here," he replied, giving her a squeeze.

"Well, yeah, but it's not always experimental hot sauce."

He looked tentative but restless, eager - a look Scully 
hadn't seen on him in so long that she was taken aback. 
"Mulder?"

"I've been following a case, Scully," he said.

"What kind of case?"

"The old kind."

"Mulder - "

"Scully, just listen. It's not an internet thing - the 
Bureau is already involved, and they're serious. This is 
exactly what they hired us for!"

"No, Mulder, it's what they drove us out for. It's what 
they killed us for." She had stepped out from under his 
arm and angrily took up a dishtowel for something to do 
with her hands. Mulder turned and laid down his spatula, 
but stopped short of moving into her space.

"It's not, Scully. I swear to you, it's not. I want to keep
 the work quiet as much as you do. But this isn't that."

His eyes had gone green and earnest, making Scully feel 
somewhat foolish. She had been flying off the handle lately,
with just the slightest provocation. It was hard not to 
get upset, to make assumptions, when there was so much 
riding on their precarious secrecy. But she still had the 
obligation to hear him out fairly. She blinked, gripped 
the dishtowel. "I'm sorry. I just..." He nodded, and she 
took a breath. "What is it?"

He told her.



Two years ago, during their last big rift, they had been 
in the basement, surrounded by Mulder's maps and police 
scanners, arguing again about a lifetime of sacrifice.

"Who are we if we're not searching? For fifteen years of 
my life--"

"I can't search from a laptop in a fucking cave!" he had 
bellowed. His arms actually shook.

"I want us to be safe! They've taken so much! I won't let 
them take everything. Mulder, I won't."

"Well, maybe that's what it means," he'd retorted in a 
strained, unfamiliar voice. "Maybe there's too much at 
stake, and we give it all up."

There was a terrible silence.

"You don't mean that," Scully whispered. "I don't accept 
that." His face, scared and a little sullen, told her she 
was right.

His shoulders slumped. "No."

She'd stepped closer to him and watched until he met her 
eyes. "It's easy to want to give everything up, just to 
keep them from taking it."

He'd reached for her hand across the corner of the desk, 
and she took it. She sat there with him, rubbing his thumb,
 even though the cement walls were unfinished and the cold 
sapped them through. It was a long time before he switched 
off the light and led her back upstairs.



One Sunday, Mulder went with her to Mass. He knew she went 
some evenings at the hospital chapel, but she had been only
sporadically to the local parish here in North Troy.

Somehow they had gotten in the habit of holding hands in 
public, something Mulder liked more than he would admit. 
For six years he had belonged to her - and that was a very 
conservative estimate - but when they entered the nave she 
quietly let go of his hand. He stood off to the side as 
she genuflected and seated herself in a pew, and he didn't 
know what to do with his hands, so obviously naked, 
weightless, for everyone to see.

Funny how he had been in love with a Catholic for years 
but didn't know the first thing about what she was doing. 
He followed awkwardly along, standing and sitting and 
kneeling when Scully did, trying not to stare at her too 
much and make her self-conscious. When the priest had said 
his blessing and the readings began, Scully laid her hand 
on his knee and leaned into him. "Relax," she said, her 
warm breath in his ear. He looked at her sideways and saw 
her half-smile. "You're a natural."

An elderly woman took her time, moving painstakingly to 
the front and paging through the lectionary to find her 
place.

"We have sinned like our fathers," she read, her voice 
even but frail. "We have done what is wicked. Oh offspring 
of Abraham! Oh children of Jacob, his chosen one!

"He sent Moses, his servant. He sent darkness and made the 
land dark. Yet they did not remember the abundance of his 
steadfast love; they did not wait for his counsel.

"Therefore he raised his hand and swore against them, that 
he would make them fall in the wilderness; and he said he 
would destroy them, had not Moses, his chosen one, stood 
in the breach before him to turn away his wrath."

The woman paused, removing her eyeglasses with careful 
hands. "The word of the Lord."

The congregation was larger than Mulder had expected. In 
the general rumble he focused on Scully's voice, soft and 
clear, as she murmured the response. "Thanks be to God."



Afterwards they drove back to their house in the cold, 
where only their bed was warm. Scully kissed his hands, 
burrowed him under the covers, unbuttoned his shirt to 
lay her head over his heart.



- - -
The end. (for now.)


Note: My psalm was very liberally cribbed and rearranged 
from Psalms 105, 106, and 107. It is not actually found 
in the readings.