Bridges
by Elizabeth Rowandale

Feedback:  Email: bstrbabs@gmail.com
Rating:  Mature
Relationship:  Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Additional Tags:  Angst, Romance, An X-File Case, Mytharc

Summary: A family in a small town in New Mexico appears to 
be suffering the ill effects of an encounter with Black 
Eyed Children. While in the desert to search out the truth, 
Mulder and Scully find themselves confronting more than 
they bargained for, both in the investigation and in their 
personal relationship. Early Season 11, turns AU after 
"This." Past and eventual present MSR.

DISCLAIMER: Mulder and Scully and the search for the truth 
all belong to Chris Carter and Co. I'm just borrowing them. 
I promise to return them in no worse condition than Chris 
would.

Beta thanks to Annie, without whom I would probably still 
be sitting in a corner feeling sorry for myself and 
refusing to post, to Erica who makes me much more 
presentable to the world, and much appreciation to dear 
Miriam, my Water's Edge beta from way back in the day, now 
back to kick my ass in line once more!

AUTHOR'S NOTES: Only one more chapter after this one! We've 
almost made it!:D

This chapter, especially, is for MY Mulder...for all the 
reasons he will recognize.:)



Copyright (c) 2019
 
Chapter 19
 
The first time he sees Scully utterly lose it to laughter, 
he is stunned. He is fascinated and awed and, frankly, a 
little concerned.

Of all the times they have gone without sleep, run 
themselves to empty, reached the slap-happy stage of 
finding anything and everything that shouldn't be 
hilariously funny -- he has never actually seen this 
borderline hysterical response in her.

But here she is, flushed pink, fanning her face, eyes 
watering, and attempting without success to contain her 
mirth.

The first time it is a humor column that sets her off. On a 
Sunday afternoon, he is reading to her, some feature 
article with real life examples of humorous insurance 
claims. And some of them, apparently, strike her inner 
funny bone with a resounding chord.

Once he knows she's okay, that she is just genuinely caught 
in the throes of a fit of hopeless laughter, he realizes he 
has never felt so much joy in his life. It's like she is 
radiating a chemical intoxicant, and for those minutes in 
his living room, he is immune to all the darkness, and 
everything he knows is red-haired love.

The second time it is actually his own dorkiness that sets 
her off. She is talking about something he does with his 
eyebrow, frequently, according to her, but when he tries to 
recreate the gesture deliberately, the face he comes up 
with turns out to be the most hilarious look he could have 
possibly thrown her. She ends up walking back and forth on 
the front porch, taking sips of water and cooling down. 
"Mulder, stop. Seriously, STOP, I can't breathe!" He has 
always considered her the queen of personal control, but he 
has discovered her Achilles Heel.

He witnesses this phenomenon a total of three times. Then 
he doesn't see her truly laugh again for a very long time.

*****

He recognized the rap of Scully's knuckles on the motel 
room door. "Mulder, it's me," she called from the walkway.

Mulder untangled himself from the clothes he was clumping 
into piles on the bed and opened the door. "Hey, come on 
in. I was just packing up."

"No big hurry," she said, stepping across the threshold and 
pushing the door closed behind her. A rush of heat billowed 
into the room with her. "Just got off the phone with the 
airline. Storms in the Midwest have everything backed up. 
We can't get a flight out until six o'clock tonight. 
Assuming that one even goes."

Mulder looked at his watch. "Well, that's not too bad. An 
hour's drive to El Paso, we should leave by 3:30pm. That's 
only six hours."

"Yeah," she said, her tone not entirely matching her 
response. She scanned his bed where it must have appeared 
his suitcase had exploded, stepped up beside him, and began 
folding clothes and laying them neatly into the open 
luggage.

"Six o'clock is bad?" he prompted, resuming the re-packing 
process himself. "Puts us back in D.C. pretty late with the 
time difference."

"No, it's not that, I just...," she faded out for a moment, 
swallowed, and tossed a pair of tightly balled socks into 
his suitcase. "I'm just ready to get out of here. To go 
home."

Mulder nodded. "Home," he parroted. "To Bethesda."

Scully stopped her task mid-motion and looked up at him. 
She held his gaze for a long moment in silence.

He offered her a gentle smile.

She folded another pair of slacks, and he folded his 
sweats.

They had both grabbed showers when they had returned from 
the hospital a couple of hours ago, washed off the dust and 
grime of their late night adventure. Scully was now dressed 
in her version of "business casual". Not quite a suit, but 
dressier slacks and a button-down blouse that clung 
invitingly to her curves. She had left three buttons open. 
He had changed into his favorite travel jeans and a simple 
grey t-shirt.

When he picked up his rumpled work shirt to shove into his 
laundry bag, he said, "We haven't really talked about The 
Stuff yet, have we."

Scully drew a long breath. She let the shirt she was 
folding flop across her arm. Her gaze was focused on 
something near the button of his jeans. "No, we haven't," 
she said slowly. "You tried yesterday, but I think we got a 
little side-tracked."

Mulder nodded, inwardly appreciative that she had 
understood his intent before it all had gone sideways. He 
bit his lip and considered his plan. Then, "All right." He 
shoved his suitcase and remaining clothes to the far side 
of the bed. Then, he flopped down at the head of the bed, 
one foot still on the floor, the other leg stretched out on 
the mattress. "Come on." He patted the open spot between 
his thighs and gestured her toward him. He was offering 
their usual technique to get her to talk.

He was caught completely off guard when she said simply, 
"No."

He blinked at her, arm still hovering, held out to welcome 
her. "No?"

Scully drew another deep breath, lay the shirt she had been 
holding gently inside the open suitcase, then she moved 
around the bed to sit in front of him, facing him. He 
dropped his arm to his leg, and she caught his hand with 
her own. "Let's see if I can do this...face to face," she 
said. "With all the lights on."

He squeezed her hand and accepted her words with a small 
reverent nod. "Okay," he whispered.
 
Scully stared down at her free hand, tracing the curved 
quilting seams on the faded comforter with her thumbnail. 
"I failed you," she said slowly. "I failed our son, and I 
failed you."

Mulder shook his head. "No, Scully. You haven't failed 
anyone. That's never what--"

"Don't do that," she said, lifting her head. "You're not 
hearing me, Mulder."

"I am hearing you. But you didn't fail William. You did 
everything you knew how to do to protect him. That's all 
any parent can do. And he's alive. You can't control every 
aspect of the life he is destined to live. You can't 
protect him from every danger, any more than our parents 
could us. We each live our own journey."

Scully seemed to take this in, but she neither confirmed 
nor refuted his stance. She tightened her fingers around 
his and said, "I did fail you."

"Why would you say that?"

"Because I promised to love you no matter what. I promised 
to want you just as you are. That I would stay. And I 
didn't. I left. And I blamed you."

Mulder blinked slowly. "And I was partially at fault. A 
relationship takes two people, Scully."

"It does," she said, nodding and once again staring at 
their hands. "But it takes two people who don't give up." 
Her voice quivered with her last words, and her next sharp 
breath betrayed her pressing tears.

Mulder sagged and let the sincerity of her words sink into 
his skin. Part of him wanted desperately to tell her no, to 
dry her tears, tell her it wasn't true, that it was all 
okay. But the broken man he had been when she had left 
needed this moment. Needed to hear this truth he had felt 
all along but loved her too much to say.

"I failed you. And I'm sorry, Mulder. I'm so sorry."

"It's okay, Scully," he whispered, and he meant it. This 
wasn't about punishing her. It was only about 
acknowledgment of what they had come through in order to 
move forward. "You're still here," he said. "You've been 
here for me if I really needed you. Just as I'm here for 
you."

She flinched. "Maybe. But you deserved more."

"What do you want now? Just be honest. Please."

She took a long moment, seemed to gather her thoughts. 
Finally, she lifted her gaze and gave him true and 
unwavering eye contact. "I want to know if this is right," 
she said.

"If what's right?"

"Us."

"You don't know if this is what you want for your life?"

"I don't know if this is right for *you.*"

Mulder pushed up straighter, leaned a bit closer. This 
wasn't the question he had expected. "What are you talking 
about, Scully? You heard me yesterday. I chose you. 
I *choose* you. Always."
"But you got better without me. With me gone. Maybe...you 
are better off without me."

There it was. A valid question, but one for which he was 
more than ready. This he could give her. He reached out and 
rested his hand on her thigh. "No. No, Scully, that's not 
what happened. Not at all."

"Then what happened? Explain it to me."

He nodded. "I think it's like...when you're leaning too 
hard on someone just to keep walking. You think you're 
still on your feet, because it feels like you are, but you 
don't realize the other person is practically carrying you 
until they take a step to the side. And you're suddenly in 
freefall. At that point, you have to do something for 
yourself. You have to take whatever path exists to help you 
find your own feet again. If you don't...you'll not only 
never be yourself again, but you'll never be able to get to 
that other person again. The person you love who took those 
steps away. So...when you let go of me, Scully, and I fell, 
it shocked me into seeing just how unstable I had become 
without your hands. And it gave me the push I needed to get 
my ass into treatment and figure my shit out. But that's 
not about you, Scully, that's about me. You didn't cause 
the problem. You showed me where I had come to, and what I 
needed to do in order to be there for you." He softened his 
voice, reaching out for her with his words where he was 
still cautious with his hands. "To get back to you."

Scully drew a couple of shallow breaths. Then she said 
simply, "Damn. That's a really good answer, Mulder."

"It's a true answer. Believe me, I've had plenty of time to 
think about it."

Scully exhaled on something like a whispery smile.

After a pregnant moment of hyper-awareness of every point 
at which their bodies touched, Mulder said, "Scully, you 
said I wouldn't come into your world, that I didn't want to 
create a new one between us. But the thing is, I thought we 
created our own world a long time ago. That we lived in it 
for years, even before we actually lived together. And it's 
exactly where I want to be."

Scully took this in, her forehead crinkled and tensed, that 
busy little head of hers whirling faster than he could ever 
read. She cleared her throat, and when she spoke, as usual, 
she had zoomed off somewhere he had to scramble to follow. 
"Mulder when I was petitioning to adopt Emily, and I was 
being interviewed by the social worker, she asked if I had 
ever been in a long term relationship. And I had to say no. 
And I told her that after losing my father and my sister 
and struggling with my cancer, I had been so afraid of 
death and dying that any emotional attachment had just 
seemed like a bad thing. Like something that would end in 
loss and pain. But I told her I didn't feel that way, 
anymore. That I was ready to open myself to Emily, even if 
she was sick and I knew I might lose her. I thought I was 
ready. And I do think I could have done it for her."

He squeezed her leg. "I know you could have."

"But I think I was wrong to think I was past those issues 
entirely. When you and I finally admitted how we felt about 
each other, and then we tried to commit to the long term... 
I tried to protect us. You. I tried to move you out of 
harm's way. I tried to hold onto little bits of my 
independence, my ability to live on my own. I kept one foot 
out the door, because I thought...if I didn't let myself 
fall all the way in, I would still be able to stand up 
afterward if I lost you. But that wasn't fair." Her voice 
was shaking again, and she reached up to brush at the 
corner of her eye. "That was me acting out of my fear, not 
out of my love. And I'm sorry." She paused a moment, 
swallowed. "If you will have me, I would like to try 
again...and I would like to let go of the side of the 
pool."

Her words hit him like a punch in the gut. The pain was 
bittersweet. Desire and loss and everything he wanted. But 
he wasn't ready to believe. Not yet. "Scully, I know it was 
harder for you when I didn't have my shit together. And 
it's not fair to ask you to be all in when I couldn't be 
the support you needed in return. So, I need to do my part, 
too. Stop throwing myself in the line of fire like there's 
nobody at home that would be hurt by it if I fail. I get 
that. I hear you. Take care of myself, so I can do my share 
of taking care of you in return."

"You did that, too," she said, this time with a kind smile 
that lingered for a beat. "You always do."

"I want to do a better job."

Scully held his gaze, the jaded warmth still flickering in 
her eyes. "We both kind of suck at a grown-up relationship, 
don't we?"

The smile spread to his lips, and the genuine affection 
came easy and soft between them. "It might not be our 
strongest life skill," he conceded. "But I think we just 
might get it if we keep at it long enough."

"I don't want you with anybody else. I haven't for a very 
long time. And that's selfish of me because it's been true 
even when I wasn't in a place I could be with you."

"That's okay. I sure as hell don't want you with anybody 
else."

"Have you, um...." she sniffed, looked suddenly closer to 
fifteen than fifty, "...dated other people?"

Mulder gave a soft chuckle. "Uh...a couple of dates. 
Nothing serious. How about you, Scully? Have you dated 
anyone?"

She shrugged. "Badly. And briefly."

They were quiet, hands still holding tight.

"I don't know, Mulder," she said, "maybe we're just...bad 
with other people. People who aren't us."

He laughed at that. "*I'm* bad with other people, Scully. 
You're fine."

She shook her head. "Maybe I was. Now, I'm not sure. Maybe 
I've gotten weirder."

"You're not weirder."

"You sure? 'Cause you're starting to make a lot more sense 
to me than you used to."

He reached up and cupped a hand to the back of her neck, 
pushed forward and pressed a long kiss to her forehead. She 
closed her eyes and leaned into the touch.

"You said I left 'us' first," he said. "Talk to me, what 
did you mean?"

She shook her head, pushed it off. "No, I'm sorry, I 
shouldn't have said that. You weren't well, it's not fair."

"Maybe. But you felt it." He nestled his fingers into her 
hair, caressed her scalp. "And you still feel it, whatever 
the cause. So tell me what you feel."

She looked up at him for a long time, tentative and 
bordering on shy. Like she was surprised when someone 
really wanted to hear the details of how she felt. He could 
forget sometimes, how insecure she could be when it really 
counted. He had gotten a full color reminder of that this 
week.

He shrugged and offered her a soft smile. "We gotta speak, 
Scully. I'm told that's how we fix it."

She huffed a soft sound akin to a laugh. Close as they 
were, he could see the small swelling where her lip had 
been cut in the clearing. He wanted to punch the asshole 
who had hurt her. He hated that in some of this, he was the 
asshole who had hurt her.

He gave her the slightest prompting with his eyes, and she 
drew a breath and said, "Just what I said before. Like that 
place we made for us...that wasn't enough. You said you'd 
walk away from it all. You tried, but you couldn't. We 
weren't enough. We weren't what you wanted, anymore."

Mulder drew a long breath, let it go with an audible hum. 
He had been over this so many times in his head. It still 
made his stomach hurt. "Scully...I know we've had this 
conversation a hundred times. But it still feels like 
you're asking me to give up who I am, what I do...to have 
you in my life. To choose between my identity and our 
relationship. But if I do that...Scully, am I still the man 
you wanted in the first place?"

She shook her head adamantly. "No. You're not. That's what 
I told you, Mulder. I fell in love with you for your 
passion, your dedication. It would be wrong to ask you to 
be someone you're not. You wouldn't ask that of me. You 
wouldn't ask me to stop being a doctor or an investigator. 
And that's part of why I left, Mulder. You shouldn't have 
to choose. But I can't live that life every day. So, maybe 
I'm wrong for you."

"You could never be wrong for me, Scully. You're the only 
one who's ever been right."

"I never wanted you to stop following your passions. I just 
wanted you to want...a safe place. A home. Something you 
and I work together to protect. Something we hold sacred. 
Something we don't let them touch. I wanted that. But I'm 
not sure you do."

"All right. Come here." He scooted forward, scooped her 
weight into his arms and lifted her into his lap. She came 
with far less resistance than he had feared, and he hugged 
her close, pressed his mouth into her hair, cradled her 
head. His Scully. "Listen to me," he whispered. "I get it. 
We have to work out a balance. We have to find a life where 
we are both getting what we need. But if you aren't sure 
that I want that safe place, that sacred space that is ours 
-- if you don't know in your bones that that is all I truly 
want, all that gives me the strength, the passion, the 
belief in myself to be able to go out and do what I 
do...then you're just going to have to stay around and let 
me show you. Every. Day. Forward. Show you I want that, 
too. That I will always want that. I will always want you."

Her arms snaked up around his neck and she held on hard. 
She sniffed against his neck, and he could feel traces of 
dampness on his skin. She nodded against him.

He tucked his face into her hair, breathed in her skin. He 
was fine right here in a second rate motel in New Mexico, 
Skinner's report be damned. As long as he could keep Scully 
in his arms.

Her cell phone rang.

"Fuck!" he said, too loudly, too close to her ear.

But it made her laugh. A small but genuine laugh, and that 
was worth it all. "Don't break my phone," she said impishly 
as she pulled back in his arms. Still sitting in his lap, 
she fished her phone from her pants pocket and looked at 
the screen. "Oh, it's Sheriff Aster," she said, tone 
suddenly more Agent Scully than the woman who had slept in 
his bed last night. "Scully," she answered. "Yeah...no, 
we'll be here a few more hours... Of course...Sure, that'll 
be fine...Thanks." She hung up and lifted her gaze to 
Mulder's. "He wants us to stop by the station before we 
head out. Just clear up some loose ends."

Mulder nodded. "Yeah, I was planning on dropping by, 
anyway."

"Me, too," Scully agreed.

They held gazes for a long moment, and the corner of 
Scully's mouth pulled just a bit toward a smile. "I'm going 
to go type up a little more of my report covering last 
night. Then I can use that for reference for the Sheriff if 
he needs us to make another statement."

"Sounds like a plan. Feel free to write mine as well, while 
you're at it."

"Not a chance," she said smoothly as she pushed off his lap 
and turned toward the door.

"Scully?"

"Hm?" She had only made it halfway across the floor, 
clearly not expecting him to have followed, when he grabbed 
the back of her neck, spun her around, and crushed his lips 
to hers. "I don't want to be mature and careful, anymore," 
he said, breath mingling with hers, body vibrating. "I just 
want you."

*****

His hand gripped the back of her neck with a force she 
hadn't felt in ages, and before she could find her breath 
his lips hit hers in a kiss charged with twenty-five years 
of raw desire. Scully staggered a half-step back at the 
impact, and Mulder's hand at the small of her back was 
instant and constant and the wave of hard and scarlet lust 
rushing through her made her feel dizzy and wildly and 
finally alive.

What had turned tender and sweet and satisfying in their 
years of domesticity and familiarity was instantly re-lit 
by the fire of all that had brought them together.

As Scully kissed back, clawed at his shoulder, his shirt, 
the nape of his neck, she tasted his tongue and she was in 
the hallway outside his apartment in Arlington, with the 
constant smell of cats and old ink that had gotten mixed in 
her head with butterflies in her stomach. The curve of his 
shoulder, the power in the flex of the muscles beneath her 
fingers flickered into being lifted from the floor of some 
dark and hellish warehouse into the arms of the only flesh 
and bone form of pure trust she had ever known. The sound 
of his breath was wrapping her fingers around the spindles 
of the headboard in that rental home they had stayed in for 
a while, when they had still been running, when her name 
had been Annabelle, and she had needed him inside her, 
completing her, treasuring her, so badly the rest of the 
world had faded into nothing.

"Jesus, Scully," Mulder rasped as they broke for air. "You 
are still the sexiest woman I have ever known."

The compliment resonated in her very core, and Scully 
responded by grasping his shoulders and jumping to hug his 
hips with her knees. He caught her weight like he'd felt it 
coming; they knew how to dance, they knew that if nothing 
else.

His mouth was back on hers, hot and needy, and she was 
hyper-aware of every inch of them that touched, of the 
crush of her breasts against his chest, her groin at the 
button of his pants. *Christ, this was a work day, wasn't 
it? They were on a case. They were...* "God, I want you," 
she breathed, cradling his jaw, stroking his ear. "I want 
you..."

"You've always had me." The huskiness lapped like a tongue 
between her legs, and before she could track what was 
happening, Mulder had whirled them around and plunged onto 
the bumpy motel mattress. She didn't care what was below 
her, only who was above.

She didn't know how long they kept kissing, touching, 
running hands to all the places of which they had been too 
long deprived, finding each and every familiar crevice, 
every mild change of landscape. The shape of his arm 
muscles had shifted; his hips were more deeply defined. He 
had been running, again.

He untucked her blouse and smoothed an eager hand up her 
ribcage. She hadn't known how very much she needed the 
touch until the contact rippled sensation down her side 
like a rush of warm ocean water. "Clothes off," she managed 
to say, and Mulder was more than willing to comply.

Moments later they were naked and tucked under the motel 
blankets, parts of Mulder's laundry scattering to the 
floor, his suitcase still perched precariously at the edge 
of the mattress. Scully stretched out on her back, and 
Mulder began trailing kisses from her shoulder, around the 
soft outer curve of her breast. The intimate contact sent 
an electric pleasure current through her core. Mulder 
paused, his lips over her ribcage, when he noticed the 
bruising from the assault last night. "It's fine," she 
whispered, when his eyes clouded with a moment's concern. 
She smoothed his hair and encouraged him to return to his 
ministrations. The last thing she wanted right now was to 
think. She wanted to let go and soak up every rush and 
whisper. Every touch and perfectly crafted caress. 
Everything that made them Mulder and Scully, when the 
pretenses and barriers were dropped; when they were Fox and 
Dana without armor, lighting their own fire in the rainy, 
tangled forest of their lives.

Mulder bit the inside of her thigh.

"Oh, God," she gasped, fingers flexing in his hair.

He kissed the tender reddening flesh, drew his tongue over 
the hypersensitized skin.

Then he moved his mouth to tasks more intimate.

"Oh, my God, Mulder...God, I missed you so much. I missed 
you..."

"Better than a vibrator?" he quipped, glancing up at her 
between sucks.

She smacked his cheek and directed him back to his task.

She didn't last long. Warmth and pressure and a tongue that 
knew her complexities better than she knew her own. Trust 
and intimacy she had missed even more than the pleasure. 
She hoped the family down the hall had gone out for the 
morning. She wasn't quiet. Holy fuck...

She wasn't done.

"Come here," she rasped, voice hoarse and needy. Mulder 
moved up over her, long and muscular and looking nothing 
like his age. Scents and tastes surrounded her that were 
everything she wanted from home.

She pulled him down on top of her, kissed him again, 
tongues tangling, battling for supremacy, and she was 
caught between the force of her kindled lust and the slight 
liquidity of her limbs in the aftermath of her climax.

It didn't take long for the lust fires to flare.

As much as Scully wanted to return the oral favors, her lip 
was still sore, and Mulder knew that. There would be time 
for reciprocation later. They had time ahead of them, 
again. Time for them.

Right now, she wanted him inside her as quickly as 
possible. Mulder was propping his weight above her, one 
hand cupping her breast, kneading and gripping and bringing 
her nipple to his mouth for the occasional draw that had 
her mewling with sounds that hardly seemed to be her own. 
She reached down and gripped his heated length, eliciting a 
near-strangled gasp from Mulder. He let go of her breast 
and fought to control his breath.

She kept her focus on his face, watching each minute 
reaction as she shifted her leg and ever so gently brought 
the tip of his cock to draw across the silken flesh between 
her opening and her clit.

"Oh, Jesus, Scully," he whispered, voice unsteady.

The power was a delicious high. "Something you want, 
Mulder?" she teased, enjoying every moment of this simple 
torture.

"Scully, you have no idea...."

She let her voice drop, deep and seductive. "Oh, I think I 
do..."

Mulder growled, somewhere between frustration and desire, 
and dove down to suck at her throat. She wondered if she 
would be left with a mark. Branded. Claimed. It would have 
to be covered in this weather, she couldn't just wear a 
scarf...

Then she lost all rational thought when his mouth took hers 
and his hand ventured south to spread her folds. Her body 
rewarded his nimble ministrations with a wave of fresh 
moisture. *Jesus Christ, how could he still do this to 
her?* She reached down, caressed his most sensitive skin 
with a light skimming of her nails that caused his breath 
to hitch, then she guided him inside her.

She closed her eyes, falling still as she breathed in the 
moment of connection. Mulder cradled the side of her face, 
pressed his mouth to her hair. "You're so beautiful," he 
whispered.

They knew every step to this dance. They had burned this 
choreography into their minds years ago. Yet somehow there 
was nothing routine or diminished in this morning's 
explorations. There was only rightness and desire and fire. 
And love.

He knew what was too much for her; what felt good and what 
hurt. He knew the right angle to drive her wild. He knew 
what to do with his thumb in the last moments before his 
own climax to push her over the edge with him, merging the 
contractions of his intimate muscles with her own. Sending 
ripple effects outward in both directions.

She was more out of breath than after her last run. And he 
knew the most important thing he could do in the come-down 
was to hold her close and tight and never, ever, pull out 
too soon.

Cocooned beneath his much larger form, she reveled in his 
neverending flair for balance between reassuring weight and 
oppressive restriction. He kissed her shoulder, her temple, 
cradled her with a tenderness that brought tears to her 
eyes. She stroked his heated cheek with the backs of her 
fingers, kissed the tip of his nose.

In the end, he settled with his ear pressed to her chest, 
tapping out the beat of her heart with his fingers. After a 
while, he fell asleep, exhausted and deprived of a decent 
night's rest. Sleep was not on her own horizon just yet, 
but she was more than content to lie in the cool rush from 
the window air conditioning unit, Mulder's skin against her 
own, his weight comforting and real in her arms, and simply 
bask in the quiet. There were moments of peace in the wake 
of the storm.

*****

(End Chapter 19)