Date: February 1999
Category: S; M/S UST, sorta Scully/other, Angst
Rating: NC-17

Summary: Scully faces a personal crisis and refuses Mulder's
singular way of helping her.

Spoilers: All about Scully.

Timeline: Should be situated “Before-Hallway”, preferably before
“the End” as well. If you really want to imagine it post FTF,
fine, just add Antartica to the list of Scully's claims.

Archive: Archive anywhere, as long as you keep my name attached.
Please let me know.

Dedication: To Galia, Bidie, Jolene, Sara, Jay, Sarah, and all of
you guys who supported me (you know who your are). Many thanks to
Leah for editing.

Feedback:  Please, feel free to drop me a line. Nice comments and
even flames will be appreciated. I believe in constructive
criticism and I'm very open to any suggestions. Or I try to be.
Email me here:
lisa.mortini@libertysurf.fr 

Disclaimer: On the first day, the white-haired God created the
X-Files. And on Sunday, he rested so we had to write Fan Fiction.



** ** ** **

I flip the phone closed and slowly rise from my couch.  I've
always been suspicious of those calls.

'Mulder, I need your help' rings in my ears. Why is she doing
this?  Why now?


*** ***

He tried to suppress the wave of repulsion he felt when entering
the bar.  Thick clouds of smoke blurred his vision and offended
his nostrils.  He used to like that place.

He spotted the bartender.  She gave him a faint smile and
gestured towards the other end of the counter.  A loose mass of
auburn hair was sprawled wildly over the marble top.  Her
shoulders were low and she was absently playing with one neatly
manicured finger.  For a while, he watched the digit draw perfect
circles, over and over.  Her cheek, resting on the cool surface,
was flattened by the weight of her head; her nose, wrinkled.

Reluctantly, Mulder motioned his long limbs in the direction of
the object embodying his ever present misery.  He put his large
hands on her shoulders.

 “Scully.”

She reacted at the speed of a sleepy turtle and pressed herself
even harder onto the counter.

“Scully.”  He gently shook her arms a little.  “We have to go.”

She turned to face him and he recoiled slightly.  The sight that
greeted him then was simply otherworldly.

She was plain beautiful.

Her mascara had smeared a little and her full lower lip was
reddened and bore teeth marks.  Her cheeks were rosy, her hair a
halo.  Water in her eyes.  The kind that sends shivers down…your
spine.

Oh.

Mulder deeply inhaled.  *God, she's completely drunk…*

He just stood there, with not one darn clue as to what to say
next.  So he trusted his eyes to do the job.  They always did.

They did it so well that she avoided his gaze and turned her back
on him.  He sighed.


The bartender approached Mulder.

“She asked for 'Spooky'.  Since you’re the only one I know in
this town…”

How could she have forgotten the dark 'Spooky Mulder' who had
come there quite a few times to wash his sorrow with Vodka?  The
barmaid waved Scully's cellphone at him.

“Did you know you’re number one?”

He had to smile at that.

“Believe me, I'm not.”

She shrugged and went on to her business.

So did Mulder.  He leaned on his partner's back, pressing his
torso against her, and let his fingers run over her arms, his
head in the crook of her neck, his mouth to her ear.  He could
feel fine hair tickling his nose, his warm breath causing
goosebumps on her skin.

“Wake up, Scully. We have to go.”

He stroked her hair once, twice.  She clumsily turned over in his
embrace and he stepped back a little.

Baby-blues struggled for recognition as swollen lips mouthed:
"Muller?"

"Yeah, it's me. Let's go."

She clung at his shirt and remained seated.  She shook her head.

“No, no, no, no…stay here with me.  Get ya a drink.”

“You've had enough now.  Let's go.”

His eyes were attracted for a brief instant to a move the
bartender made.  She raised up two fingers, but it wasn't a
victory sign.

*Only two drinks, Scully?  Jesus.*

“No,” the redhead protested again.  “Night is still young.  And
so am I.”

“Let's go, Scully,” he said for the hundredth time, exasperation
taking over him.

“Don't use that tone with me, Special Agent Mulder,” said Scully,
in an almost forceful voice.

The barmaid winced in surprise but Mulder didn't flinch.
Swiftly, he collected her light weight in his arms.  She cried
out her indignation and her punching matched her kicking.  But
Mulder held her tight.

He looked around for help and soon enough the barmaid came near
with Scully's purse in hand.

“There you go.  Take care of her.”

“I'll try.”

Scully's head was hanging low, pressed onto Mulder's warm back,
his arms snaked around her thighs.  He heard only muffled sounds
and then her body stilled.

Mulder fumbled in his jeans pockets for some cash and left a fat
tip to the bartender.  He exited the bar and braved the cold.
Stopping in front of his car, he fumbled again with his pockets.
He finally opened the back door then laid his supposedly sleeping
partner down over the backseat.


Then, they headed home.


*** ***

Thank God she's a little bird, my Scully.  I couldn't have
carried a bulk like Skinner that long.  I'd learn to park closer
next time.

I held her.  Her lithe body almost molded into mine and you know
the rest, died and went to Heaven.

I cover her with my overcoat and let her rest.  I'm a good
driver.  I like to drive her places.


“Mulder?”

We've been in the car for, like, 4 minutes and she's awake.

I remain silent and it's good because my mouth stays agape as she
crawls from the back seat to the passenger's.  I won’t even begin
with the stunt I've just witnessed, even less with which body
parts brushed my shoulder.

She watches me intently.  Then talks.  And even I can't stop her
when she's on a roll.  Her head seems clear.


*** ***

“Thanks for coming to get me, partner.  I dunno what came over
me.”

I don't owe him any apology but I go for it anyway like any good
catholic girl would.  And oh, I know too well what came over me.

“You looked pretty wasted back there.  Care to share?”

Like I'd tell you.

“For your information, I wasn't wasted.”  My nose is just red
from the chill of the night.  “I am not wasted.”  That's a true
lie, sweetheart.

“Two drinks, Scully?” he asks, sarcasm dripping from his
delicious mouth.

“I'm Irish, Mulder, so bugger off.”  There.

He had to smile at that.  And he did.  It doesn't prevent me from
feeling like a disoriented kid tonight.  A lonely, empty and
clueless teenager.  Hell, I look like one in that outfit.

“What's with the outfit, Scully?”

The man scares me sometimes.

“Investigate, G-Man.”

“Hum. Too short to be a night out with Mom, too much cleavage for
Church meeting.  Could it be…” And I swear his voice just broke
then. “…date, Scully?”

He stares hard at the insignificant road and God, angry Mulder is
a beautiful sight.  My lips remain sealed and this heavy silence
actually answers his question.

“Not good-looking enough?” he flatly states.

I feel like throwing up. Then I understand he wasn't talking
about me, but 'him'.

“No, actually Brad Pitt was in town so I thought I'd do him a
favor and show him around…”

Not even a flicker of reaction.  We pull in front of my apartment
building and I clumsily exit the car, still remembering I have to
get my jacket from the back-seat.  My feet are sore from my
ridiculously high heels and I surely have to bear some uncalled
resemblance to a dizzy Spice Girl.

Mulder quietly watches me as I finish my little show and get
myself together.  I notice the car doors are closed and that he
follows me to the door like a stray hound.

“Where do you think you're going?”  I'm a bitch.  I don't really
care if I hurt him.  But the man is driven.

“In, with you.”  He's got that 'we have to talk' look plastered
over his face.  One I haven’t seen much of lately.

I shrug and take my shoes off.  He eyes me suspiciously.  We're
still outside after all.  The concrete is cool on my soles.  I
hand him my shoes and work on getting my keys out of my purse.

He stares at me like an idiot, my 'fuck me hard' black pumps in
hand.

My jacket is shed to the floor before I even arrive to my
apartment door.  I know he picked it up, silently.


Inside, at last.

*** ***

Why is she doing this?  Why am I doing this to myself, again?  Is
this 'Abuse-Mulder Day'? Of course, she isn't really aware - or
so I hope - she is slowly killing me but the result is the same.

Like a cat, she enters her apartment and strolls to the bedroom.
Her hips sway and I have to refrain myself from shoving those
shoes back on her and order her to walk for me.  Pose for me.
Scully is no supermodel, but she sure does arouse me more than
any of those women.  Or any women on this planet for that matter.

I follow her.  She must know I'm walking after her but not once
does she acknowledge my presence.

When I enter her bedroom, she is unzipping her skirt with one
unsure hand while opening a drawer.  The skirt falls to the floor
and so does my jaw.

She grabs the first T-shirt she finds and a pair of gray boxer
shorts.  She throws them at me and the shirt unfolds to reveal
the logo of a Vermont Maple Syrup Farm, with the painting of a
fox in the wilderness underneath.  Papa Freud would have a field
day with this.

Then she finally turns back to me and I have a hard time letting
go of her pantyhose clad figure to find her eyes.

What I see there, I don't like.

She takes her top off and the shimmering black material lands on
her bed.  She comes closer, grabs her clothes from my helpless
hands, nods to me then enters her bathroom and carefully closes
the door.

I should be following her once again.  I should pin her to the
wall and finish undressing her.  I should let my hands wander
over her skin.  But I don't.  Because of her eyes.

Not once.  Not once has she been embarrassed.  Not once have her
cheeks been flushed.  She has merely seen me, still she knew I
was there.  She was casual about it.

You bet amazement was in my eyes.  Lust.  Desire.

I saw trust in her eyes.  Friendship too.  Worse, I saw
indifference.

I sit heavily on her bed and stare at the immaculate carpeted
floor.  There, in the corner, is one piece of my heart.  One has
rolled under the mattress, one under the chest of drawers.  I
stop counting.

Over the rumble of the shower, I hear a high pitched voice, so
unusually Scully.

“Mulder? Would you make me some tea?”

Friend.

“Sure,” I offer.

Friend it is.

She was drunk tonight.  Or least, she wanted to be.  And she
called for me.  I have to be there for her.


*** ***

My hair is damp and cold drops fall down my spine.  I put on my
terrycloth robe over my shorts and don't even bother with the
t-shirt I chose.  I wrap a towel over my head.  I massage my
scalp for long seconds, drying the heavy water there.

I look at my face.  It's young but still some wrinkles have taken
up residence around my eyes.  I wear no make up and long gone is
the Spice Girl lookalike.

I discard the towel and tighten my robe then go find my partner,
my friend.  He's waiting for me in the living room and so is a
mug of tea.  I sit on the couch next to him and sip silently.


“Did he hurt you?” he finally asks.  It takes me a moment to
understand what he means.  I can't help but stare at him.  His
face is broken, his shoulders slightly slumped.

“Oh. No, of course not.”  Not physically, anyway.  He's obviously
relieved.

“Who's he?”

“A doctor.  I met him during your last stunt at Georgetown
Memorial.”  I could have just said I was dating the Smoker
because his face twists in an ugly grimace.

“Good to see at least somebody profits from me getting hurt.”
Ha, ha.

It's surreal.  Discussing my love life with Mulder.  A cup of tea
in hand.  We rarely enjoy little human pleasures like these.

I know he cares though, he's very territorial when I'm
concerned.  I'm his F.B.I. partner after all.  His partner.

“So, what did he do?”

Driven, I told you.  Mulder is like a dog.  Once he's found a
bone he fancies, he won't let go.  He'll go to the end of the
world to get it and satisfy his hunger.  Not that this comparison
is very flattering to me.

A bone doesn't have any form of language.  So I remain silent.

“Or could it be what he 'didn't' do?”  His overacted flippancy
exasperates me.

But you know, this dog has some flair.  He is so insightful, I
should give him a reward.  A fat, juicy bone.  Too bad I don't
have anything of the sort on me right now.  Or do I?

“Yeah, yes, that's it, Mulder, you nailed it.”

Marrying the Smoker?  I might as well be cheating on him with the
alien shapeshifter.  Mulder looked as if Holyfield just punched
him in the gut.

He avoids my eyes and for a moment, a tiny bit of chapped skin on
his thumb seems to be as fascinating as a Dali painting.  Then,
the dog is back on track.  He proudly holds his head up and barks
his sarcasm.

“Too quick?  Didn't pleasure you long enough?”

“God, Mulder, listen to you.”

“I'm not the pseudo-drunk who called his partner at 1:00 AM to
come get him out of the smoke.”

"I…”  I'm at a loss for words.  He does that to me sometimes.  I
think I'm up to his game, but I'm not.  Especially when I started
the game, and he ends up being right.

Special Agent Fox William Mulder always carried the deep
conviction that his saint of a partner Dana Katherine Scully had
no life.  No personal life, no sexual life.  Nothing but the
devotion she put in her beloved work.  A holy figure.  I guess it
all crumbled tonight.  Can't blame a guy who just lost one of his
most treasured beliefs for being angry.

“I don't even know why we should be talking about this.  I'm
gonna go.”

“Mulder…”

He's up now and his tall figure moves to the door.  When he looks
down at me, I see his internal turmoil displayed in his eyes.  He
can be so obscure and also so transparent.  Fox Mulder loves me.
I knew that.  The horrible news is that he's in love with me.

“Look, Scully, you didn't want to drive to go back home, you
called me, I drove you, end of story.  What you do on your own
time…God, I didn't realize you had your 'own' time anymore.”

“Mulder… Sit down. Please.”

He doesn't move.

“Please.”

He sits down besides me, wary.  His eyes have become gray.

*** ***

I can't believe she let another man touch her.  A man grazed at
her skin, nibbled at her ear, maybe even licked the honey of her
palate.

And now she looks at me, innocent and…she wants to talk.  Her
face is devoid of all artificial enhancement.  This is how I love
her.

“You know me.  I don't do this very often.”

“What, date doctors?  Or talk to me with your heart open?”

“Both.”

She's gained my attention now.

“A very attractive man, you know.”  I rarely find other men
attractive.

“And intelligent.  A professional.  When he asked me out, I was
flattered.  You know how busy we've been lately so I kept
rescheduling our dinner.  He was very understanding and patient
and kept calling me anyway.  We actually spent one hour on the
phone one night discussing… this and that.”  She pauses.

I'm sick of the details.  I'm sick that she shared our usual
midnight phone conversations with that educated bastard.  I hate
phones.

I notice she is waiting for me to rearrange my thoughts before
going on.  I nod to her.

“So tonight…”

“…was the night,” I finish for her.

“Yes.”

“You looked…very nice.”  I'm trying, real hard.

“Thank you, Mulder.  This was the effect I was aiming at.
Unfortunately, he didn't see me in that light.”  She lowered her
head down.

“He's blind?”

“Worse.  I was there all prepped up.  He took me to a nice
restaurant and we made small talk up until the main course.
Then, we talked about work and he was genuinely interested in my
experience in bacterial viruses and toxicology.”

God.  I see what she's getting at.  If I put my hands on the
bastard, his guts will splash out in the gutter.

“Professional courtesy only?”

She snickers.  How can it be worse that this humiliation?

“The nice doctor ended up confessing to me he had gotten hold of
my personal medical file – don't ask me how – and he wanted me to
be the main subject of a study he plans to conduct on miraculous
recoveries that defy science as we know it.  I came back from the
dead, or so, at least three times in my still short lifetime.  I
told him I had stopped counting after awhile.  Needless to say he
was very impressed.”

She is so cold as she tells me all this.  It has indeed worsened.

“I just stayed there and stared at him.  God, the man wasn't
dining and wining me, he was recruiting an experienced
guinea-pig!”

I try to seek the truth in her eyes.  I'm not quite sure what
bothers her that much.

“How the hell did he get your file, anyway?”  I didn't exactly
shout that but I may as well have been.

“Who knows?”  Then, quietly, “not all people work for 'Them', you
know.”

“Or so you keep telling me.”

We both pause for a moment.  Scully is obviously very upset about
all this and I can already see the blue marks of my fingers on
the bastard's throat.  But strangely, we are both calm about this
now, almost focused.

“So he's a jerk,” I offer.  “Be glad it didn't go further.  Turn
the page and move on.”

“God, this really is the desert mocking the sandbox,” she sneers.

What?  She wasn't 'that' drunk, right?

“And what is that supposed to mean?  Drop the metaphors, will
you?”

“Didn't you go to Oxford?”

She sighs and regroups her foot under her thighs.  Smaller and
smaller like a tiny red ball.

“This is not just a date turned wrong, Mulder.  It's the story of
my life.  Wanna hear it?”

Her tone dances between bitterness and teasing.  If she trips
over the lime flavored feeling and falls, I'll follow her.

“Will I be the bad guy or the good guy?”

“You're not in this story, Mulder.”

Yes.  Sure.  I never was, was I?  I try my best not to engrave
'HURT' on my forehead and patiently waits for her mystical tale.

“See, this girl, she was brilliant.  She had a family, a career,
a future.  Then, one day, she was taken for three months.  Result
of that event?  One trauma and several side effects: a terminal
disease, a dying child, a chip in her neck, a bridge in
Pennsylvania.  How's that for medical records?”

Her clinical detachment freezes my blood.

“Yes, ladies and gentleman,” she croaked, “we have a winner!
Dana Scully takes it all!”

“Scully…”

She shuts me up.

“And the Grand prize is one fantastic ride to hospital-land.”

I sigh and lean back on the couch.  My throat hurts.


*** ***

Doesn't he see how I've become a sick soul in an empty, rotten
shell?  My body was manipulated against my will, violated in the
most bizarre ways. I have chunks of privacy left. The intimacy I
can offer was stolen from me.

“Strangers poked at me, touched my skin…They harvested my ova.
They implanted me.  God knows what else they did…  Do you know
what it feels like?”

“You mean, did I ever had black nodules climbing up my nose?”

I often forget how well he knows me, and how similar our paths
are.

“So you understand.”

“I never said I didn't.  I just mean it's up to you to decide
what kind of importance you want to give to those men.  Do you
want them to stalk you until death and make you miserable your
whole life?  Or can you move on?”

This is silly.

“It's my life, Mulder.  You can't find solutions in a textbook.”

“It seems easy to say and difficult to put in application.  But
the answers are in you, Scully.  I want to believe you're strong
enough to overcome this."

I'm not sure I am.  This void inside me had been eating me for
now and my life has frayed into thin gossamer threads.

“We all need to be reminded we’re alive once in a while.  Flesh
and blood human beings.”  I am so mad.  “We're not test subjects,
damn it! Cattle they can use as they please!”

I know Mulder doesn't see me that way.  He loves me because of my
will, my strength and spirit.  He also carnally lusts after me.
I see him.  When he thinks I don't.

My body still remains his object of desire.  My skin is forever
soft under his gaze.  His and his only.  That's the heart of the
equation.  He's the only one.  He's my only hope.  And the
enraging detail is I don't return his adoration.

He can’t stop staring at me.  We've done a lot of that tonight.
A quick glance at the VCR tells me it's almost 3:00 AM.

“You're not a test subject, Scully.  Not to me.”

Talk about stating the obvious.

“If that's of any importance to you.”

“Yes, it is,” I whisper.

“So why do you have to look elsewhere, Scully?”  I wish I were
able to gather him in my arms and whisper in his ear that we'll
be all right, like in the movies.

“Can't we learn to survive…together?”

I tighten my robe until my torso suffocates.

“It's not that simple.”  I cannot even look at him now that I'm
refusing him what he deserves, what he earned.  I don't take
pleasure in any of this.  I just don't see how I have a choice.

“And it's not what you want.”  His voice is weak and plaintive,
dispirited.  I'm killing him.  I won't ask for his forgiveness; I
can't even began to think about forgiving myself.

“I want somebody who will love me for my personality AND for my
body.  Who will not be afraid of me being barren, of my scars, of
the past I carry within me.”

I've just discovered the way to make a grown up man cry.  I have
to administer the last blow before I loathe myself any more.  So
I look right into his soft, glistening eyes.

“Somebody else, Mulder.”


*** ***

Scully handles the shovel with a grace I envy her.  She can dig
somebody's grave with dexterity and calm…in only a few words.
She also has a tiny silver spoon with which she eats your heart
alive when you look away.

I'm used to losing.  No, really.  As Eddie Van Blundht once say,
I'm a loser by choice.  Or maybe it's fate.

Still, I'm good at my job.  I help people.  I seek for answers
and I get to wave a gun and a badge and I feel so important and
arrogant…God help me.  I've lost more than I've gained in all
this clutter.  Exit a sister, a father.  Now my partner is
slipping between my fingers.

It's not that I'm not worthy of love.  After all, I'm good at my
job and I get to wave a gun and a badge…

I swallow hard and take a chance.

“You're a beautiful woman, desirable.  I don't see why you should
be deprived of what you want.”

She is so expressionless.  She has no passion, no fury, no envy.
Just bitter regrets for something that didn't happen.

“I'm dirty inside.”

Click.

And I lose it.  All the pain, the violence buried deep in my core
is unleashed.  I push her hard against the sofa, poor furniture
that never saw such a display before.  Her eyes are so wide it
hurts to look at her.  I pin her beneath me and brutally close
her mouth with one large hand.

She just stays still, pliant under my touch but frightened as
well.

I'm worthy of love.  If only she could grasp she is immensely
worth of love as well.


*** ***


Withdrawing his hand, confident that she wouldn't protest, Mulder
slowly ran a fingertip on her cheek, traced her lips then forced
entry in her mouth.  She let her eyelids fall and exhaled a loud,
throaty sigh.  His finger leisurely probed the inside of her
lower lip, then followed with the upper one.

Transfixed, Scully let him play with her.

He leaned into her neck and let his tongue taste her ear.
Licking the soft flesh first, then nibbling at the lobe.

Lowering his right hand in a feather-touch of her whole
upper-body, he didn't ignore her breasts and slipped digits under
her robe, fondling the soft mounds with care.  She didn't stir,
didn't utter anything but low moans that quickly drove Mulder to
the edge.

Oblivious of his own needs, he slipped his warm hand between the
waistband of her boxers and her cool skin.  Gently, he teased
then found her inside and slowly stroked.  One, two fingers.

All the time, his eyes never withdrew from her face and he
relished the sight of Scully squinting her closed eyelids tight,
groaning in total acceptance.

In a swift movement, Mulder put her to torture as he drew his
fingers away from her warm wetness.  He eased himself inches back
from her little body.  Missing him instantly, Scully opened her
eyes.

Seriously, his husky voice answered her silent question.

"I've been inside, Scully.  It's not dirty.  It's beautiful...."

Scully held her breath.  She wiped salty tears from his loving
face with a lazy palm.

She smoothly pushed him flat on his back, carefully mimicking his
former actions.  She didn't close her robe, just draped herself
over his torso, snuggling up against his chest.  Her left hand
edged its way under his shirt, ending up resting on his stomach.
Her face found shelter on his shoulder and she sighed.

He raised a hand to her head and let his fingers stroke her red
strands.  Soon, she slept.


Mulder knew he had lost but eagerly accepted all she could give
him.  He closed his eyes to forget.


** ** ** **

FIN


“We're boss at denial
but best at forget”

Bush – Little Things