Disclaimer:  Of course they don't belong to me and they never will.  They
belong to a bunch of other people who are making millions of dollars as we
try to make sense of their relationship.  Don't sue and I'll keep watching,
okay?


In case anyone ever archives this piece of..this piece of fine, upstanding
literature.Just let me know where it's going:



Title:  And
Author:  Rebe
Rating:  PG
Classification:  MSR, A, Scully POV,
Spoilers:  Host, Triangle, Rain King, Tooms, Bio, others.

Author's note:  This takes place in my mind sometime in the middle of season
seven, after all the Biogenesis stuff is dealt with and swept under the
carpet.  (hey, they did it to us after One Son, and a lot of great authors
have already tackled Bio and the Fowl-quite nicely I might add.)  Anyway,
this is my first post of any of my stories, and it is an effort to show
Scully's rambling thoughts.  I have always thought Scully's mind kind of
worked like this.  And although this is not a humor story, I tried to
downplay some fanfic clichs.  Thanks to Kimberly.  Enjoy if you can.



~And~


He is touching me.  And not on the small of my back like he used to when we
walked together down hallways.  And not on my arm when he would urge me in
the right direction on cases, when he could have perfectly well just have
said, "Follow me, Scully."  No, his excuse of recent is my stomach, as he is
trying to make a point about something.

It reminds me of when he woke up in that hospital bed after his battle with
a rip in the time continuum when he deliriously tried to convince me that I
saved the world because I believed his story-and that was one of his best
ones yet I might add-and now, he is poking my stomach in the middle of my
doorway as he leaves from a long night of working on paperwork.  And no, we
didn't act like normal people and order Chinese food or pizza and get
distracted by the potential of feeling human.  We worked.  And we
accomplished what we needed to accomplish.

And as usual, my science has lead him to a break in our case, and we, or
rather he, is on to something that defies logic and I'm sure he will come up
with some convoluted theory that happens to be the only feasible
explanation.  Ninety-eight percent success rate, huh?  Well, he was right
when he said that, and even though my science helps him and he knows it, I
can't help but sense a teensy bit of condescension as he bids me goodnight.

He pokes me as if to tell me I did good tonight and that all of the details
I picked up on, well, he might not have noticed them as quickly if it weren'
t for me.  And I am sick of these touches.  These meaningless touches that I
don't understand, and that I don't welcome.  Why do you touch me, Mulder?  I
would answer the question myself, but I have absolutely no fucking idea what
they mean.

I let the rational Scully that I am take charge and she tells me that after
seven years of working together and sharing a bond that no one but us could
possibly understand and that no one could ever break, and after he's gone to
the ends of the Earth to save me, and after he's freaked out when I am in
danger, and after he has shown me the love in his eyes when he picked up my
ill, now dead little girl.Oh yes, the rational, not the passionate, but the
rational side of me tells me his feelings.

That he loves me in a Mulder way, which is that he is obsessed with my
existence in his life.  But that doesn't explain his touches.  Are they to
reassure him that I am there?  Doubt it.  Are they to feel our soulful bond
more strongly?  Please.  I don't know what they are for, but one thing I
know for sure is that they are not because of some intense desire for me
physically like I thought when we were so much younger.

He could have kissed me back in the first year we worked together, when that
stretching freak of a man almost ate one of my favorite organs so that he
could hibernate a little while longer.  And he knows damn well I would have
kissed him back.  He knows.  He knows.  He has to know.  So I am sick of his
touches and as he turns to leave I ask him a question I think deserves to be
asked.

"Why don't you want me, Mulder?"

There.  I said it.  And I mean it.  And now he is looking at me with this
idiotic expression like he is hoping for my sanity to return at any second.
And it won't return because it never left.  Because I am the only sane
element of our bizarre relationship and I know it and he should know it, but
what's sanity to Fox Mulder anyway, and why doesn't he ever just look at
something and decide to take it at face value without looking for hidden
meaning-like a rational explanation would be almost as painful as losing his
sister all over again.and why am I rambling?.  I want *him* to ramble.  No,
actually I don't.  I want a concise, epigrammatic, albeit careful answer to
my painfully obvious question.

I feel the air thick with Mulder thoughts.  His mind is heating up and right
now he is searching every fold in his brain for a response to my query, and
I bet right now he is wishing those folds were all categorized and easily
referenced.  He can't think of anything clever to say, so I repeat the
question.

"Why.  Don't you want me.  Mulder."

"Want you?  Scully, I may not often express my gratitude for your loyalty,
but.

I cut him off because he is an idiot.  "Mulder.  I said why don't you *want*
me."        Why don't you need to feel what it's like to touch me without an
excuse?

And he smiles some idiotic half-smile which I don't even care to analyze
because nothing about my question is funny.  And I'm not a fool.  I knew my
question would throw him.  I know I am not open with my feelings.  I hide
them from people mostly because I can't explain them rationally.  I tell my
journal everything, though.

But even my damn diary has been checked for punctuation and spelling errors
time and time again.  So, yes, I know I am not so much of a passionate
person.  Yet that is not what my question is about.  I don't want this to
turn into confession night.  I don't want him to shed a single tear as he
realizes that I wanted him all this time, and that oh, why was he so blind
not to see it before.  Uh uh, I don't think so.  My question is mere
curiosity.

I know I am a beautiful woman.  I have pretty features and a nice head of
hair.  But, I know I am beautiful to him for weird Mulder reasons.  I know
he would make love to my mind if he could, to express his gratitude for it,
but that is not what this is about.  I want to know why he hasn't craved my
touch. Why he hasn't wanted to act on the physical chemistry that is so
obviously between us.  And at the very extreme, why he hasn't wanted to see
what I look like undressed and flushed and inviting.

And I guess the reason why I think my question is such an obvious one, is
because I have wondered what it would be like to let myself feel like that
towards him.  And no, I don't think of his beautiful lips as I close my eyes
clutching my pillow at night, nor do murmur his name in my sleep and awaken
only to feel empty, longing for his touch.

I just want to touch him and I want him to touch me for reasons other than
your typical comfort from fear and assurance of life.  And I'm not going to
ask the question again, because although I know he is deaf in so many ways,
I am certain he can hear.  And so I decide to clear my head of my ramblings
and wait for him to answer, fully expecting that he will.

But he doesn't.  Not in words anyway.  He reaches forward and he pulls me
toward him in a gentle hug that feels like warm thick bed sheets, and I
relax in his arms a little until I feel his large hands stroking up and down
my back.  Then it feels different, and I stiffen.  And then I begin to
wonder again why he is touching me.  It can't be to comfort my fears or
assure him that I am alive, so perhaps it's pity.  Does he think I'm
delirious from our hard night's work and that I need some sleep?  Or maybe
he is trying to distract me from this embarrassing question that I should
never have asked him because it is sort-of against bureau policy to think
your partner's hot.  Bullshit, Mulder, and I call you on it.

I step away from him and he looks to me with a vibe that I understand
because of our unspoken communication which frankly I hate sometimes, even
though it has saved both our asses time and time again.  I hate it because I
thrive on words.  Preferably spoken in complete sentences.  And I know my
thoughts ramble, but mind you no sentence or explanation I utter ever will.

And what he is trying to tell me with this look of his is that he cares and
that he doesn't really understand what I am asking, and that he would kindly
like me to elaborate.  And I wonder why it is such a hard question.  It's
not like I am asking him how a giant worm can take on human characteristics,
or how a little chip can cure what years and years of research couldn't, or
even how a one-seventy-fourth part Cherokee Indian could make it rain.  But
he's asking me to elaborate nonetheless.  And so I will.  I switch into
Scully mode so as not to throw him off more and I try to explain properly
the most simple question I have ever asked him.

"Mulder."  I begin.  And I pause.  Not to be melodramatic, but because I don
't really know how to explain the question.  "Mulder.".   And I pause again.

"Scully."  He begins, and his tone might be mocking.   I look up at him and
wonder.  His expression says otherwise.  "Scully.  You have now asked the
same question of me twice and you have said my name twice."

He is right.  He can't hear my thoughts, so now what I need to do is lay
them all out in my head and see which sentences fit together in a concise
manner so that I can form the best explanation for why I .

"Scully."  He slows my thoughts.  And I think I see a hint of hurt in his
eyes.  "It's not that I don't understand the question, it's that I don't
understand why you're asking."  I try to cut him off, but my words of
explanation are still traveling from my brain to my mouth.  "Because if you
are asking why I think you are asking then we don't have much to discuss,
Scully."

In trying not to look affected by his statement, I of course succeed in just
the opposite and I wonder what I can do to try and finagle my way out of
this odd situation.  But something in his expression stops me for whatever
reason, and suddenly I feel quite small as he places his hands on each side
of my face, near my temples, and he strokes lightly along my hairline.
Something about his touch feels different this time.  I feel small because
his expression and his movements make me nervous with a feeling that I've
let him down somehow, and I can't quite put my finger on it.  And then all
of a sudden I can quite put my finger on it.

He has always wanted me.  I don't know why he has never shown me outright or
told me, but somehow I know he has always wanted me.  And I curse my
incessant ramblings, or my brain for never being able to run slow motion,
and I realize that all of my thoughts have been on discounting his touches
as everything less than physical.  I smile because I know my reaction to the
question I've been asking Mulder all this time is the only reaction I've
ever known with him-to prove his feelings wrong.

He pulls me back into him and I relax a bit-more because of the release in
my mind than from the feel of his body.

We stand there for a long time, I think, and I know he is giving me time to
process everything.  Has he seen through my skull before to witness my
wheels turning?  Does he know how my mind always works a thousand miles an
hour?  He does.  And as I finally make sense of it all, he lifts up my face
to look at me in my blue eyes which I know aren't blue to him, and he gives
me an answer to my question.  And I know what he is going to say.

"I needed you to ask."

And he pulls me in for a kiss and I love him for how gentle he is and for
how he shivers because of the feel of my mouth for the first time.

Yet it is not the most spectacular thing I have ever felt, and I don't feel
burning heat rushing to my center, or fireworks in my head.  I am just happy
to have an answer to my question, and happy that my mind can slow for the
time being.  I am happy to understand one more facet of this complex man.

And maybe I am just happy he is touching me.





End.


What did you think?  Should I keep posting my stories?  Send feedback if you
want to k_russ@hotmail.com.  I'll only weep if you don't love it.  Kidding.